


Artificial Scion

by RenkonNairu



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Robin - Fandom, Superboy - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Conspiracy, Drama, Gen, Krypton Survives, M/M, Mad Science, Pre-Slash, Sci-Fi, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenkonNairu/pseuds/RenkonNairu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-AU-<br/>Krypton and Earth share a casual political relationship. Kal-El is the Ambassador to Earth. He and his human wife contribute DNA to a Cadmus genetics projects but are double crossed. After Kal confides in his friend, Bruce Wayne, Batman Inc sends Red Robin to investigate. <br/>Tim/Kon Pre-Slash</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Space Lab

Timothy Drake, current working alias Alvin Draper, gripped his seat's armrests and told himself that there was nothing to worry about. Sure, he was sitting on top of thirty metric tons of chemical propellant. But these shuttles ran all the time -okay, they ran semi-regularly. Every two weeks. Between Earth and Cadmus' satellite facility, Space Lab. Yeah. They were real creative with the names. The point was, these things ran all the time!

But frequency did not prove safety. All it took was one slight miscalculation in the math.

Escape velocity is the square root of 2GM over r. Where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the body you are escaping from, and r is the distance from the center of the gravitational body. Escape velocity for Earth was 11.2 kilometers per second. That was where the large quantities of highly volatile propellant came into play.

Tim grit his teeth as the shuttle gave a slight jolt. That would be the primary rocket disengaging and the secondary thrusters firing. The shutter had three main thrusters. The primary which shot the rocket like a plume of fire into the sky. When their propellant tanks were expended, the thrusters then broke off of the main body and fell back to Terra so that their added weight did not drag the ship back down. The secondary thrusters then took over and followed the same process. Fire, propel the rocket, expend fuel, break away and fall back to Earth. The third and final thrust came from the shuttle itself.

Those did not come on until the shuttle reached 11.2 kilometers per second. Until it was already well on its way to space.

Since Earth did so much trade with other planets like Tamaran, Thanagar, and Krypton, Batman made sure that each and every one of his proteges had some experience with space travel. Billionaire Bruce Wayne, in his infinitely opulent lifestyle, payed for each of his boys to take a space cruise. So, this experience was not new to Tim. But he had never been fond of space travel.

He knew to much about the physics of it to be completely comfortable with it. Dick thought it was all good fun. Tim thought Dick was bat-shit-crazy.

But he tried not to focus on that. Put it out of his mind that he was being shot into a vacuum with the power equivalent to a hydrogen bomb, or that the only thing separating him from being succeed out into that vacuum was a pressurized tin can. That the air he was breathing was filtered through various purifiers. That a micro-meteor could punch through the hull, depressurize the cabin and kill them all. Damn you space travel!

Tim could jump off skyscrapers. He could swing from impossible heights onto moving vehicles. Stare down gun barrels and smirk. Preform any number of dangerous, life-threatening, feats. But space travel... that scared him.

'Don't think about it.' Tim reminded himself, forcefully pushing those thoughts out of his mind. 'Focus on the mission. You're doing this for a reason. Review mission objectives.'

Sneak aboard Space Lab under the assumed identity of a maintenance technician. Maintenance techs worked on two week rotations, so once Tim got there, he would remain there for two weeks. Hopefully, that would be enough time to complete all objectives. If not... well, then Bruce can send Dick, since he thought space travel was so fun! Or Steph, or Cass, Jason... Oh, hell! The old man should just go himself. After all, this mission was a favor for his friend. Bruce Wayne knew the Kryptonian Ambassador socially. Tim Drake and Red Robin did not.

'Stay on the mission.' Tim reminded himself.

Once on Space Lab, use cover as technician to splice a tap into their computers. Sift through various project files and locate human-kryptonian gene splicing experiments. Discover what Cadmus did with the DNA samples donated by the Kryptonian Ambassador and his human wife (if possible). Copy all available files, back them up to personal PDA. Report back to Earth.

Easy, right?

Sure. It sounded easy on paper and two weeks was way more than enough time to accomplish those goals. But that didn't mean that it actually was easy. For two weeks he would be trapped on Space Lab. If anything went wrong at any point, he would be completely on his own. The tap could be discovered. Or when he actively hacked into the file to locate the specific information he was looking for. Or his download could be detected and tracked back to whatever terminal he used. Then he would be cornered. Trapped.

In space.

Why the hell wasn't Bruce the one doing this!? Ambassador Kal-El was his friend!

And Kal-El didn't even intend to get Batman Inc involved. As Tim understood it, Kal-El was just venting to his friend, not asking the man funding Batman Inc -cough, cough- to have his people look into it. All Tim knew was that he was in the cave one night, refilling the pouches of his belts, minding his own business, while Bruce -still in the suit he'd worn to the gala that evening- pored over the computer doing research on the genetics laboratory.

That was when Dick and Damian got back in. Dirty, and exhausted. Damian gave Tim the obligatory insults in passing as he stripped off his costume and made a B-line for the stairs back up to the house -most likely intent on a shower. Dick, on the other hand, pulled his cowl down, leaned over the back of the original Dark Knight's chair and just had to ask, "Ooh, is this a new case? Something juicy?"

Bruce did not deign to respond. He just continued his preliminary recon on Cadmus. An innovative genetics laboratory, originally based in Metropolis. Significant achievements included 'the Habitat'and successful human cloning (still very controversial). Within the past year, Cadmus unveiled a new laboratory in stationary orbit, their Space Lab. It was there that they proposed to explore inter-specie gene splicing with an emphasis on human-alien hybrids.

As Earth traded with other planets more and more, inter-species marriage become progressively more and more common. Sadly, those couples could not have children. While most races through out the galaxy might look very similar to one another, two arms, two legs, etc. That did not change the fact that they were still of two complexity different species and could not procreate together. Ambassador Kal-El and his wife Lois had each offered samples of their DNA to the project to that end. But then, Cadmus cut off all communication with them. That was what he was venting to Bruce at the gala.

'Whoa!' The cabin gave one final jerk as the secondary thrusters were jettisoned. Tim felt lighter in his seat, the drag and pull of Earth's gravity no longer exercising its grip on his body. They were in space now. The only thing keeping him from floating out of his seat and drifting about the cabin was the harness crossed over his chest. The Red Robin pulled the straps tighter while he ran through some of the breathing exercises he'd learned for meditation, practically forcing himself back into something resembling a state of calm.

To his left another one of the techs on his shift yawned -actually yawned! The bastard! And pulled out a magazine, cool as a cucumber. As if this were just any other 747 flight from New York to Miami. Then again, do this twice a month regularly and after long enough what's terrifying and exciting becomes mundane. Tim hoped he never became accustomed to space travel. Complacency lead to mistakes, negligence, accidents and death.'Just keep focusing on the mission. You've got a job to do.'

After some digging, it turned out that several couples who had volunteered their genetic material had similar stories. Clearly, Cadmus was up to something slightly less than noble up in their isolated Space Lab.

But all Dick saw was the the word 'space', and suddenly he was excited.

"This looks important." He began, stating the obvious and mundane. "Especially since the Kryptonian Ambassador is involved. It could start a war. We should totally send someone to investigate."

Bruce did not sigh in exasperation at the former Nightwing and current acting Dark Knight, but he did turn his chair around and steeple his fingers, regarding his eldest ward critically. "You're absolutely right, Dick." He said. "Kal-El's father holds a position on Krypton's Ruling Council. If he were to share this incident with him, purely for comfort and support from family, and Jor-El were to take the matter to the council chambers, it would most definitely make Earth's diplomatic relationship with them tense."

"So, you're gonna send someone to investigate." And it was wrong how excited he sounded.

"I am." Bruce nodded. "And I know just the man for the job..." Dick beamed proudly. "Tim, clear your calendar for the next two weeks, plus three days prep-time."

The Red Robin's hand slipped fastening the clasp on a pouch and its contents went spilling all over the work table. "Excuse me, what?"

That was what brought Tim to this point. Sitting strapped into an almost airline style chair, restraining harness crossed over his chest, wearing the uniform of a Cadmus maintenance tech, his hair artificially colored, with contacts in his eyes so that 'Alvin Dapper' didn't resemble Timothy Drake-Wayne, and being shot into space.

Personally, he blamed Dick.

But he got his revenge. With Timothy Drake-Wayne suddenly taking a leave of absence from the company, that meant that Richard Grayson got hit with all of his paperwork, on top of his own. Tim smiled an evil smile when he remembered that. Dick hated paperwork. It was one of the reasons why he left the Bludhaven PD -to much paperwork, he never imagined a job as a police officer required more typing and filing than actual action. Ah... live and learn.

The spiraling wheel of Space Lab was coming into view now.

A white and grey ring spiraling around a central stationary, cylindrical, core. The core cylinder sported a tail, extending far enough below the ring to allow for shuttles to doc. It was this tail-doc that Tim's shuttle was silently but speedily coasting towards. He hoped the pilot was adept at space-born docking. The shuttle hatch and station's hatch had to be lined up perfectly for an airlock to form. Otherwise the transfer tube would depressurize and anybody on either side would be sucked out into the void. It wouldn't be the sudden change in pressure or the lack of a breathable atmosphere that would kill them. It would be the freezing temperatures of space -three degrees Kelvin. Death would be instantaneous.

God! Tim hated space travel!

He watched Space Lab grow closer in his tiny airplane-sized window. The ring had a radius of two-hundred and ninety-eight meters, with a circumference of a little less than two-thousand meters. Okay, Tim was doing the math, so lets be exact. One-thousand eight-hundred seventy-two meters. Thirty meters wide. A hundred meters deep. The core cylinder was five-hundred sixty-three meters long and eighty meters wide. At the moment, to Tim's naked eye peering through his window it appeared to be three centimeters in size and steadily growing bigger at the rate of one millimeter every four seconds. From that, the Red Robin could estimate the shuttle's speed.

Tim estimated that if they continued at their current speed, they would reach the station in two hours. If they did not decelerate, they would crash into it and most likely die. If they began decelerating to close to the station, they bounce off of Space Lab, knocking the satellite just enough to change its orbit while the shuttle went spiraling off towards Jupiter. But if the pilot got everything just right, their forward motion would stop before they even touched the outer shielding. Not even a love tap. The pilot would then use a series of mini-thrusters aligning the flanks, hull, roof, forward and aft segments of the outer shell.

Maintaining the speed Tim estimated, it would have taken them two hours to reach Space Lab. In the end, it took them three hours and forty-five minutes.

He jumped when the shuttle made contact with the station's doc. The first sound to come from outside of the ship since leaving Earth's atmosphere. The sudden jerk of his body bouncing Tim between his seat and his harness. If it wasn't for the harness he would have gone flying off through the cabin with no other forces acting on him to slow or stop until he made contact with one of the walls. Newton's most basic Laws of Motion. An object in motion will remain in motion until another force acts upon it. Tim loved science. He hated space.

The other techs in the cabin hid smiles and snickers behind their hands. Damn it all. The objective was to remain invisible. Not make himself the center of attention. Well, that plan was shot to heck! Lets all look at the new guy, still hasn't gotten his space legs. Har har. Really, Bruce should have sent someone else. Anyone else!

Tim tightened his grip on his armrests and forced his body back down into its seat.

"Easy there, Draper." The man on his left, the one with the magazine from earlier, offered a humoring smile. "This ain't like the sims they got at MIT. There's no kill switch to bring the grav back to Earth-norm if you go flyin'."

"I know." Tim nodded. "This is not my first time in zero-G."

And it really wasn't. Bruce made sure of that. He had experience moving in a zero gravity environment. How to dust for prints, swab for GSR, DNA, chemical residue, etc. Even zero gravity combat. That had not been fun! Tim was pretty sure Damian could have killed him if Dick hadn't pulled the little demon brat off.

When the air lock hissed as it sealed and the green light signifying that it was safe to pass through flickered on, the cabin lights went up and everyone began unbuckling from their seats and floating towards the airlock. Using the backs of the seats like the rungs of a ladder, pulling themselves towards the airlock. Tim waited until the cabin was clear to unbuckle his harness but did not push out of his seat. He took a deep breath, just hovering in place, no forces acting upon him. When he was sure he had himself under control, that was when the Red Robin started to move.

He may not enjoy space travel or zero gravity, but he had been trained to move and work in it and so that was what he did. Making slow, controlled movements. First reorienting himself. One hand still holding the armrest so as not to go flying off, he turned himself over so that he was facing his chair. Like the others did, he pulled himself from seat to seat as if climbing a ladder. But he paused at every seat that had been occupied, to collect hair from the seat backs or swab for sweat or epithelial cells from the arm rests. This was not a main objective, but Bruce did want to know who worked on Space Lab and how many at any given time. The hairs and swabs were all sealed in carefully labeled evidence bags. He wouldn't need to deal with them until he got back planet-side two weeks from now.

That task completed, he entered the transfer tube.

It was only one meter long. Made primarily of concussion glass, a composite of terran space-glass used by NASA and kryptonian crystal-tech. It was clear as glass, but strong as reenforced steel. A mesh of nylon netting covered the inside of the tube for people to pull themselves along with. If it weren't for the meshing, Tim might have thought he had stepped outside into the void.

He took a deep calming breath. There was air. There was pressure. The temperature was perfectly agreeable to the human condition. Tim pulled himself along the nylon meshing until he reached the other end of the lock. Opening the door release, he slipped inside and could not have been happier to be sealed inside an enclosed space again.

Someone slapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, Draper, you made it!"

Just arrived and already he was drawing more attention than he wanted. Yeah. Bruce really should have sent someone else.

...

Experiment 13 hovered in the chamber that had been his home since he first became conscious several month ago. There was no gravity in his chamber because he was in the dead center of the station. No spin. He knew this because he heard the scientist talking about it on the other side of the glass.

One of the six sides that made up the cube that was his world was a giant mirror.

According to the scientists on the other side, he should be able to see through things. But as much as Experiment 13 tried, his eyes never were able to penetrate the walls of his little world. He could hear through them, though. His hearing was excellent. He knew every scientist by their voice, breathing pattern and heartbeat.

Roquette was the one in charge of his project. She was female as evident by her voice and the fact that the others used the female pronoun when speaking about her behind her back.

Spence was another female. She was in charge of the security of his project. From the tone of what he overheard, she was the one meant to subdue him! That was something that confused Experiment 13 since all he'd ever known was inside these six walls and immediately on the other side of the mirrored wall. Why would he want to harm all he'd ever know since he first became self-aware?

A man named Westfield came and went. Sometimes staying for long hours to discuss Experiment 13's progress with Roquette, other times just popping in for a brief report. His visits did not follow a regular schedule but they had become more and more frequent of late. Westfield was apparently anxious to move the Project to the next stage -whatever that was. Experiment 13 never knew when he was going to show up and when he did, it was the most excitement he would have in his tiny inclosed life.

He knew their names and heartbeats. Even details about their lives outside of his little world. He would overhear their conversations, gossip about children, spouses, neighbors. Things he only understood as concepts. Knowledge and information that had been implanted in his brain before he gained consciousness.

Although, Experiment 13 would be lying if he said that these concepts didn't intrigue him. Perhaps that was why Spence was here. To make sure he did not try and leave to see these things. He was strong. They preformed regular tests of his strength, endurance, invulnerability and other things. They never told him why. He was not meant to understand. But he did know that these were things that they themselves could not do.

They could not see through solid objects or bend bars of various metals with various tensile strengths, maintain physical activity for hours without becoming tired, or withstand things such as having projectiles shot at him from firearms. But he could do all these things. He had something they called 'hybrid genetics'. He was created by combining twenty-three chromosomes from an Earth-human cell and twenty-three from an alien cell. In his case, a kryptonian donor. It was because of his kryptonian donor that he could bend metal and was invulnerable against everything they'd thrown at him thus far. But it was because of his human donor that he had another ability.

A power the geneticists that created him had not foreseen and still had not made up their minds about. They were still trying to measure and map its full scope. They called it 'tactile telekinesis'. It was a type of psychokinetic ability that allowed him to move objects with his mind after he touched them with his bare skin. Or to probe certain things so long as they were making contact with him. It was an invisible and ephemeral power based in the corporeal sense of touch. Tactile telekinesis.

Perhaps that was the reason Roquette was denying Westfield's promptings to move forward. She didn't want to move to the next stage until she had a better understanding of her subject's abilities.

His chamber's intercomm crackled for a moment before none other than Roquette's voice asked, "How are you today, Kid?"

Experiment 13 didn't know why he didn't inform her that he could hear them just fine through the walls without need of the intercomm. Perhaps he was afraid that if they knew he could hear them, they wouldn't speak as freely. Roquette certainly never shared any of their reasons with him. Why he had been created. Why they were measuring his abilities. Why he was kept isolated in this chamber. What Westfield wanted with him. All he knew was that he was created from combining the DNA of two different species and because of that, he had special powers.

"Same as every day, Doctor." He replied, holding down the comm button on the mirrored wall as he spoke. "Board, with nothing to do."

...

Barracks, bathrooms (thank god!), and mess were all located within the inner most level of the ring. The station's spin simulated a gravitational pull so that people could walk almost normally without bouncing through the corridors. The furniture and equipment was still bolted or strapped down in the event that something stopped the spin and the gravity went out. The beds in the barracks sported harnesses similar to the seat-belts from the shuttle ride over.

Tim hated sleeping in a low gravity environment. He was practically counting the days until the mission was up and he could set foot back down on solid terra once again.

He got his first opportunity to for the computer tap on his third 'day' aboard Space Lab. 'Day' referring to a twenty-four hour cycle based on Eastern Standard Time back on Earth. It was a standard software update and hardware check on a terminal on level three of the ring. No one batted an eyelash at a maintenance technician bent over an open access panel. Software updates were every six months and hardware checks every six weeks or as needed. Standard procedure was to check the hardware before any new software was updated.

Tim used the standard issue wire-cutters from his main-tech kit to strip the insulation from the feed line that connected the individual terminal to the station's main hub. The wire exposed, Tim gimmicked in an encrypted wave transmitter. It would communicate with his personal PDA and his personal PDA only. If anyone attempted to crack his encryption without using the appropriate sequence of keywords, they would end-up instead downloading a list of every book written by Robert Kane and a cute little virus that would leave their computers singing 'Nanananananananana' until they found a way to clean it out.

With the tap in place, Tim could begin copying all Space Lab's available data. It would take all of his two weeks to copy all of the station's hard-drives and at least six muti-terrabite jump-drives to save and transport it all. Tim brought ten with him just in case the files were larger than anticipated. He could monitor copy status from his PDA at any time, but switching out the drives would have to be done in privacy so as not to arouse suspicion -in the bathroom, or if his barracks-mates ever gave him seven minutes in the room alone.

His hacking to find the specific information Bruce wanted would also have to be done in private. Unless he wanted to have a porn file open in another tab to explain to all his barrack mates why he was always hunched over his PDA so conspiratorially.

...


	2. Core Conspiracy

Doctor Serling Roquette observed her creation through the two-way mirror fitted to his cell. She hovered in the zero gravity of Space Lab's core, one hand closed around a wall handle so that she did not go drifting off along the currents of artificially circulated air. The other hand resting critically on her hip. Behind her, the rest of her team monitored the subject's functions -his heart rate, respiratory pace, brainwave activity, etc.- as well as how much weight they were exerting on him.

The 'weight' was technically a hydraulic crusher that extended out from one of the six walls of his cell. In zero gravity there really is no such thing as 'up' or 'down', but from the perspective Roquette was watching, let us call it the 'ceiling' of the subjects cell. She watched him hold the weight up over himself as it tried to crush him.

His feet were not touching the opposite wall of his cell. In fact, with the exception on his hands on the hydraulic weight, no part of his body was touching anything. He was pushing the weight back all by himself, without pushing off of any other surface. In a zero gravity space, that should not have been possible. But then, kryptonians could fly under their own power and that was also anomalous. In addition to that, the subject also had the strange and unforeseen ability of 'tactile telekinesis'.

Without looking behind her, Roquette ordered, "Increase weight by sixty kilograms."

The increase was not much, but it wasn't expected and so it pushed him back a fraction of a meter before he compensated and was once again holding back the press.

His eyes flicked to the mirrored wall for a moment and the intercomm crackled for a moment. He must have pressed the button using TTK. That meant he now had fine motor control of his telekinetic power. Interesting. How fine were his motor skills with the power? Roquette made a note in his file to design a series of experiments to test it.

"I can take more, Doctor." He said.

Roquette held down the intercomm to reply, "All things in moderation, Kid."

...

The data copy was at fifteen percent and had already filled up its first jump-drive. Tim had switched out the multi-terabite drive that morning, pausing the download just long enough to open up his PDA and make the switch. He watched the status bard as he ate his breakfast.

The ring was equipped with five different mess-halls, the one he was assigned to was on the inner most level of the ring and sported wide windows made of the same glass-kryptonian crystal composite as the docking tail's transfer tube. That meant that no matter what side the ring was facing -Earth side, or space side- you could always see the core cylinder as you ate. When Earth wasn't in the backdrop, Tim could pretend he was at a restaurant on the top floor of a business high-rise. Wayne Tower had a pretty decent cafeteria on one of the upper floors. With the station's rotation carrying Earth out of the picture, he could pretend that was exactly where he was -having a late dinner in the Wayne Tower cafeteria, high above the city lights so he could actually see the night sky.

The food, however, was not the kind Tim Drake would receive in the Wayne Tower cafeteria. Not by a long shot.

The ring's rotation simulated gravity, so thankfully, Tim was not sucking his meals through straws from plastic bags. But it still wasn't exactly Earth-norm fair. Nothing that made crumbs or required assembly at the table, and absolutely no liquids. So, no toast, or cereal. Soup? Forget it! Oatmeal was also problematic, but it was naturally sticky and so would be less likely to go flying if the spin randomly halted and the gravity went out.

"Hey, Draper!" Another technician on Tim's shift flopped down on the opposite side of the table, an innocent motion on earth, but at two thirds Earth's normal gravity it made him bounce slightly before settling himself by gripping the edge of the bench. "Got your space legs yet? Think fast!"

He kicked the table suddenly. It was bolted down, like all the large furniture on Space Lab, but in two thirds Earth's gravity the small jolt would have been more than enough to send Tim's breakfast sailing if he hadn't slammed his hand down over it. The worst that happened was that he got warm sticky oatmeal all over his palm. Tim glared reproachfully at the man as he whipped his hand on a napkin. "I told you, I've been in space before."

"In another low grav place like this?" He smirked. "Luna City or maybe another station. Oh, gosh, don't tell me your only real space experience was space-Disneyland!"

Tim remained silent. Timothy Drake, third ward of multibillionaire Bruce Wayne went on space cruises between Earth an Luna City, Earth and Mars, Luna City and the Russian Space Habitat. Accumulatively, he'd probably logged almost a year of time spent in space. Seventy percent of that time spent in zero gravity, the other thirty percent in low gravity like this. But Alvin Draper was not Tim Drake. So, he said nothing, neither confirming or denying and allowing his shift mate to draw his own conclusions.

"Ah, Draper, next time they call nagging about a loose screw in the core, I gotta take you with me." He said. "Working in zero G, tools floating around... Its great!"

At that Tim paused. "But..." He said, slowly. "We're level 4 techs. We work on the computers terminals and the labs' hardware. Wouldn't something in the core be a level 1 responsibility?"

He shrugged. "If you're talkin' 'bout the docs, yeah. That's all level 1 guys' stuff. But if its anything within thirty meters of the lab they've got there, that's a level 4 job."

"There's a lab in the core?" Well, that was interesting. None of Bruce's or even Barbara's research mentioned anything about that. If it was in the station's core cylinder then it must be a zero G lab. What could they be growing in zero gravity? Or, was the significance of its location just to keep it isolated from everything else?

"Yup. rumor is that's where they're keepin' JFK's remains."

Of course it is.

...

Tim thought it was interesting that the station had a lab that wasn't in any of the official reports or even the unofficial ones Barbara managed to dig up as Oracle. It became even more interesting when he pulled up an in-house schematic of the station and it still did not appear. As far as anyone else was concerned, aside from the ship docs in the tail, there was nothing in the core cylinder except the machinery that spun the ring.

His curiosity was piqued.

His main objective would still have to remain the discovery of what Cadmus is really doing with the alien gene samples they collected, specifically the Kryptonian Ambassador's. Since a direct communication with Bruce from Space Lab was to risky, he couldn't get clearance to change mission parameters halfway through his first week. Tim would just have to prioritize. Main objectives over deeper mysteries. For now. Investigate, but do not get side tracked.

Right then.

Tim waited until his barracks mates were gone before putting a sock on the outside hatch handle to ensure that he would not be disturbed and hopping on the room's terminal. He started simple. No sense pulling out the big guns before they were necessary. Try the average dumb guy stuff first and don't over think things. He did a database search for the keywords 'genetics', 'hybrid', 'alien', 'homo-sapien' and, just to make sure all his bases were covered, 'clone'.

None of the hits he turned up were even remotely relevant to what he was looking for. They had a genetics project on Level 5 of the ring that was attempting to combine tomatoes with tobacco. On Level 3 a botanist was cultivating a crop of hybrid day-lilies that were supposedly non-allergenic. There was a wide enter-department debate going on, on the effects of low gravity on homo-sapiens. Finally, countless hits on cloning projects. Food production, cloning an entire crop from one carrot. Surplus wool, mutton, leather, beef. The seemingly eternal ethical debate. Then, technology cloning techniques and possible ways to guard against having your cell phone or computer cloned.

Plenty of interesting stuff. Nothing even close to what he was looking for.

Okay, the every day dumb guy stuff had failed. Tim hadn't expected it to work anyway, but he had to try just to say that he had, in fact, tried everything. Now it was time to bring out the big guns. He plugged his personal PDA into the terminal's USB slot. The new task would slow the copy and download of the Space Lab's mainframe, but it was a calculated and necessary consequence. His objective was to discover what Cadmus had done with the Kryptonian Ambassador's blood after all.

With his PDA it wasn't hard to break the first layer of firewalls that protected Cadmus' secrets. Not that there were many secrets to be found under the first layer firewalls. Or the one under that. Somewhere around the fifth firewall Tim started to find the really interesting stuff. Apparently, yes, Nicolas Cage was, in fact, a vampire. Twenkies had been discontinued in order to prevent a zombie outbreak. Mitt Romney was actually a Dalek puppet. Stephanie Meyer's books were a secret Cadmus plot to control the planet's youth. All fascinating stuff. Still nothing relevant to his mission.

Finally, he found something odd.

Buried under ten different layers of security protocols and redundancies was one single file. It was a large file according to the terminal. But it sported no description. Just the project title, 'Experiment 13'. Most interesting of all, however, was the fact that Tim could not break into it. He must have tried almost two dozen different codes, but the file would not open for him.

Finally, his barracks mates returned and demanded to be let in. Tim was forced to shut down his operation and hide the evidence of what he'd been doing. The last thing he did before opening the hatch was to changed into s pair of sweatpants, rumple his hair and the sheets of his bed so that it looked like he had been doing exactly what that sock on the handle implied he was doing.

He made sure to act extra snappy and irritable as he opened the hatch to let his barracks mates back in.

...

Experiment 13 was feeling the strain now.

Roquette said everything in moderation, and so the pressure had been added on slowly. So slowly that he didn't really notice until things started getting into the hundred mega-ton range. Now he was sweating from the effort. Yes, Experiment 13 was actually perspiring. They would probably want to send someone in to swab it after this was over. He sweated so rarely, it was like Christmas had come early for the scientists whenever he did.

What was 'Christmas' anyway? Something exciting?

Focus! Oh, this was heavy! Experiment 13 grit his teeth as he returned his full attention to the weight he was attempting to push back. It was heavier than the last time Roquette had attempted this test. Just like it was the time before that. Every time they brought the weight out to measure his strength, they made it a little heavier. They said it was because he was still developing, that he was getting stronger. Eventually, he would reach a plateau and that would be his full strength until he reached full adulthood.

For the moment, Experiment 13 wondered if he might have already found his plateau.

The weight was putting enough pressure on him to force him backwards. Teeth grit, muscles straining, he tried to push it back. But instead, he was the one being forced backwards. His eyes flicked to the intercomm button and for a brief moment Experiment 13 thought about asking Roquette to stop. They had found his limit. End the test. But this his feet touched the opposite wall of his cell. He was stuck between the hydraulic press and the edge of his little world. Then he didn't think at all, just acted on instinct.

Experiment 13 wasn't sure what he did exactly. He knew it was his TTK that did it, he was wasn't sure how. One moment he was the meat in a metal sandwich, the next moment the hydraulic weight ruptured and fell apart. Every moving piece coming apart at once. The debris hovered around him, his own personal asteroid belt of junk metal in the zero G cell.

Roquette was on the intercomm in a second. "What happened, Kid!?"

He floated over to the mirrored wall, tapping the intercomm button to explain. "I, uh..." Searching his brain for the correct term to describe the moment for the doctor. "I got scared. Then... poof."

...


	3. Orbiting Secret

Tim was fixing a light-fixture in a lab testing the effects of different sun lights on native Earth organisms. Perhaps replacing a lightbulb was a little below Alvin Draper's pay-grade but it was the task assigned to him and he didn't want to draw attention to himself by being an uppity little snot. Besides, the title of 'Uppity Little Snot' belonged to Damian. Far be it for Tim to try and usurp the crown prince's title.

But it was right after this job, as he was packing his tools away and trying to figure out if the intern that had been supervising him while he worked was just socially awkward or trying to flirt with him that his shift supervisor poked his head in the lab.

"Oy, Draper!" He said. "Big job in the core. All level 4 hands on deck. Grab your tool kit and lets go. Hope you can adapt to zero G as fast as you did low G."

And that was that.

It was the end of Tim's first week. The mission was half over. He had only just recently heard the rumor about the secret lab in the core cylinder and now here it was, the prefect opportunity to do a little snooping. It wasn't the main mission objective, but it was at least something. Since he hadn't made any progress in discovering what Cadmus was doing with the Kryptonian Ambassador's DNA, why not go ahead and investigate this? At least then he wouldn't go home empty handed at the end of his two weeks.

So, that was what brought him to floating in a zero G workroom with six other technicians, all trying to piece back together what had once been a hydraulic crusher.

They had sorted most of the larger pieces out. All divided into groups and tethered to the walls by nylon netting. But parts and pieces still floated around them, drifting on currents of the circulated air. Occasionally a screw or bolt would bean one of them in the head, eliciting laughter and jeers from everyone else.

One female tech snatched a screw out of the air and glared at it reproachfully as one might glare at a child who knows they've been bad. Then, her glare turned to confusion. "This screw's been stripped."

"That's what happens when you use the wrong caliber head." Scoffed the shift lead. "Chuck it in the scrap bin and get a new one."

"No, I mean the threading." She elaborated. "The screw threads are gone."

She passed it around so that everyone could see. It had clearly been a screw at some point. Not a bolt. But the threading was completely stripped. The shaft not exactly smooth, but not rough and pitted either, there were no striations like the screw had been manually stripped. It was more like the spiral had just unwound itself of its own accord.

"Sabotage, you think?" One of the other techs suggested.

"For what?" Asked the woman whom had gotten beaned by the screw. "This is an industrial crusher, its basically a giant trash compactor. What possible motive would someone have to sabotage it?"

"Obviously, they were trying to prevent Han and Luke from rescuing the Princess."

This elicited a chorus of laughter from the team. Trash compactors, space, and half a dozen nerds. For the first time since boarding the shuttle in Cape Canaveral one week ago, Tim started to think that maybe this mission wasn't so terrible after all. If there was one thing that Steph or Cassie never let him forget, it was that he was a giant nerd.

"If that were the case then this would still be in once piece and we wouldn't be here." He said. "If you wanna go with the Star Wars comparison, then you should say Luke used his Jedi powers to break the compactor in order to escape."

There was a beat of silence.

Then, "Whoo. Points to Draper!" The shift lead reached a hand out to ruffle Tim's hair with approval. "There's hope for you yet!"

"Thanks... I think." Tim said, because Alvin Draper was supposed to be a quiet and socially awkward technician who still wasn't comfortable in space. Not the confident and critically observant under-cover detective that Tim actually was.

"What I don't get," continued the woman who pointed out the screw, "is that we've been called in to fix this thing almost every month for the past six months. What are they doing in there that they keep breaking an industrial multi-mega-ton crusher every month."

"Ah, but this is the first time its been completely destroyed." Said another. "Usually they just call in one or two of us to fix a blown out fuse or broken gasket, stuff that can be easily caused by applying more pressure than the device was designed for."

"Which is also why, every time we fix it, they make us soup it up." The shift lead reminded them.

"So, this is new?" Tim asked, waving a hand at all the nylon nets holding all the parts they sorted.

The shift lead shrugged. "Far as I know."

"Then there's the times they want us to come and collect all the bent, broken and warped guns." Added another. "Really serious stuff too. Not just street guns like pistols and revolvers, but big things like shoulder rockets and mini-shells. Stuff I wouldn't want to be firing inside a space station. Gotta dispose of it carefully. Can't endanger the rest of the station."

Tim suddenly had a horrible vision of someone -the Joker maybe- firing a rocket-launcher at a wall and then everybody and every thing getting sucked out into space. Instant death. He would have nightmares after lights out. Damn. He hated space travel. Again, why hadn't Bruce just come himself? After all, this mission was for his friend!

Someone jostled his shoulder. "C'mon Draper, you know you wanna ask."

Tim blinked at him. Ask? Ask what? What were they doing in the secret lab? Yes. He wanted to know. But Tim was not about to ask about it. People who asked questions got noticed, got watched. If someone was trying to keep a secret, then they got a might anxious of people who were curious. So, he replied, "Boss says its where they're hiding JFK's remains."

"Yup!" Nodded the shift lead. "The gun that shot him, too."

"That's just BS!" Said the one that jostled Tim. "Its where they're hiding the evidence of the first faked moon landing."

Everyone else groaned.

"Look, man. We're in space right now. The moon landing happened! Get over it!"

"Sure. It eventually happened. Just not in 1969."

Everyone groaned again.

It was pretty obvious that no one knew what was going on in the secret lab. But if techs were called into the core to clean up after it on a semi-regular basis, Tim might get the opportunity to find out.

...

Hovering on the opposite side of the room was an assortment of objects.

A pencil tethered to a small note pad. A common generic calculator. A vintage game controller -not connected to anything. A strip of shirt buttons. A needle and thread. Experiment 13 was given each of these things to hand before the test. To get a feel for them. His telekinetic power was based in his tactile sense. He didn't need to be constantly touching them for it to work, but he did need to handle them with his bare skin at some point. After each item was handled, they were all taken away and arranged on the opposite side of the room.

This was a test of his TTK's fine motor ability.

"Whenever you're ready, Kid." Roquette said over the intercomm.

Experiment 13 nodded at the mirrored wall before turning his attention back to his test. He reached out with his TK field, brushing up against the pencil and pad. He wrapped a tendril of his field around the pencil and attempted to touch the tip to the pad.

The pad went drifting off until the string that tethered the pencil to it pulled it back.

So, he wrapped another tendril of TTK around the pad to hold it steady. He pressed the pencil to the pad and drew one rough semi-strait line down the page. He looked to the mirrored wall, wondering if Roquette was pleased or disappointed by this. But she said nothing, neither to him directly over the intercomm, or to anyone else behind the glass. So, he drew a second line, this one horizontal, but still just as rough and semi-strait. Then he attempted a circle, but came out with more of a lopsided oval.

That was when Roquette's voice crackled over the intercomm. "Try writing something." She suggested. "Write 'plain Jane sits in the rain'."

Turning his attention back to the pencil and pad, Experiment 13 flipped to a blank page and began again. Touching the pencil to paper and trying to write. The tail of his P went a little sideways to begin with and the loop curved in on itself slightly. The L didn't present much of a problem for him. But he found the A to be very difficult. By the time he finished the first word, Experiment 13 was already frustrated by how sloppy his TTK writing looked. Almost like his handwriting back when he was still newly conscious and still learning to write. 'A child's writing', the scientists would call it.

"You don't need to frustrate yourself, Kid." Roquette said when he was half-way through 'Jane'. "If its to hard, just move on to the next one. This is just to gauge how you're developing, not to push what you can already do."

Experiment 13 nodded and dropped his field from the pencil and pad. They hung in the air where they were as he moved onto the calculator. He typed in a simple problem: one plus one equals... The calculator came up with two. Easy. The buttons weren't to small and it wasn't very difficult to push one without disturbing the others. He tried a few other small problems. Had no issue with any of the buttons, then moved onto the next object without waiting for Roquette's OK.

The game controller was a easy as the calculator. Actually, it was easier since the buttons were spread father apart and chapped differently. It was easier to differentiate between them and press them. The START and SELECT buttons were a tad problematic because they were so small and closer together than any of the others on the device, but aside from that, easy.

Next were the shirt buttons.

Experiment 13 was not looking forward to them. They looked difficult. When he had felt them in his hands, unbuttoned and rebuttoned one, it had been easy for his dexterous fingers. But now, with his TTK, he wasn't sure. He once again extended his field, taking hold of either side of the strip of buttons with two separate tendrils of power. One tendril of his TK field shimmying between the fabric while the other tried to push the button through the hole. The fabric trained, but the button did not slip through. He tried pulling the fabric over the button instead, but that didn't work either. He tried three times, but his TTK just didn't have the dexterity to unbutton a shirt. Finally, he got so frustrated that he just lanced out with his power and ripped the string of buttons apart.

"If you get frustrated just move on." Roquette said over the intercomm.

Last one. The needle and thread.

Experiment 13 already knew he wouldn't be able to do it before he even tried. The needle was small and thin. A little to thin for a tendril of his TK field to grasp. The thread, even thinner. He couldn't even grasp them, never mind attempting to actually thread the needle. Eventually, he managed to get a hold of the thread by wrapping it around his TTK instead of the TTK around it. The needle, however, was not so malleable. No matter what he did or how finely he stretched his tendrils of telekinetic power, he just couldn't grab hold of the needle until he finally bend the smooth metal into a curly-cue.

He sighed. Drifting over to the intercomm switch, Experiment 13 pressed the button and said into the mic, "Sorry, Doctor."

"That's okay, Kid." She replied. "This wasn't pass or fail. It was just an assessment."

...

Before returning to the ring and beloved gravity -artificial though it was- Tim took a moment to jack into one of the core cylinder's terminals. Hooking up his PDA via the USB slots, and pulling up a schematic of the station.

The Space Lab schematics were no different here than they were from the ones her pulled up on his room's terminal. But on his room's terminal he hadn't really given the secret lab much attention. It wasn't one of his mission priorities. But as long as he was here, why pass up an opportunity? Certain filed could only be accessed from terminals at certain locations in the station. It was a wild shot, but since the secret lab was in the core, why not try and access it from a core terminal. At least, that was his logic.

So, using his PDA as he had done the pervious night while searching for information on the Kryptonian Ambassador's DNA, Tim slipped past some rather sophisticated security protocols and found what he was looking for: A complete map of Space Lab that included hidden laboratories, access corridors, air ducts and equipment storage that was not featured on the publicly released blueprints.

There was a secret lab in the core.

Tim saved the real schematics to his PDA. Covered his tracks and disconnected from the terminal. Even if he didn't find out what Cadmus was doing with the Ambassador's DNA, he still wouldn't be going home empty handed. He uncovered proof that Cadmus was doing something shady up here in their high orbit station. That at least was worth something. Plus there was the copy and download he was running. Tim checked the status quickly to find that it was at forty-eight percent.

Almost half-way and his first week was over.

Tim still had one week left to complete the download, discover what they did with the kryptonian DNA sample, and get back to Earth without blowing his cover. In addition to all that, it seemed like he was orbiting a new secret. Literally. He also wanted to figure out what that was -if at all possible- before he left.

He tried another database search when he got back to his barracks. His roommates had gone for a late lunch in the mess, leaving Tim completely alone. He used a backdoor he'd left open for himself to slip more easily behind their defenses and find that odd file again.

'Experiment 13'.

A large file with no description, just a file name. Tim wanted to crack it. He wanted in. He had already ruled out everything else, if the knowledge of what Cadmus did with Kal-El's blood was anywhere in the central database, it would be in that file. Tim was sure of it.

...

After his assessment, Experiment 13 began doing little experiments of his own with his TTK.

There wasn't much he could do in his small, little world. But he tried anyway. Using his TTK to squeeze his food out of their plastic pouches and making the droplets of nutrient rish liquid bob and dance around him in the zero gravity. Running his hands over the walls of his cell, attempting to penetrate them with his telekinetic field, get a feel for what there might be beyond them.

There were air ducts on one wall. Experiment 13 followed them until his nose hit the adjoining wall and he could follow them no further. Beyond another wall was a wide empty space. Maybe a corridor or passage? He wasn't sure. He didn't know much about the world beyond his cell. He knew it was a space station. He knew it orbited a planet called Earth. And he knew that one of his genetic donors was an Earth-human.

Roquette thought it was good that he was finally trying to explore his abilities without having to be lead by her.

"Put your hand on the glass." He told her one day over the intercomm.

Experiment 13 waited for her to acknowledge over the intercomm that she had, indeed done so. Then he placed his own hand of the mirror. His own reflection stared back at him, crystal-blue eyes intense with concentration as he spread spread his TK field over the glass. Over it, then through it. Just like when he felt what was on the other side of the rest of the walls. He found Roquette's hand and moved his own hand to where it was over hers. He felt her palm and finger tips. The pulse in her thumb. Warm living skin. The glass was still between them, but it was the first 'human contact' he'd ever really had.

"This feels weird." She said over the intercomm. "What are you doing?"

"I can feel your hand." He told her. "Through the glass."

She was quiet a moment and he wondered what she was thinking. Was this a good thing? Was she pleased with him? After the silence began to drag on, Experiment 13 became uncomfortable. He knew she was still there. He could feel her hand on the glass still, hear her heart in the room on the other side of the mirror. He knew she hadn't left. That meant she was thinking. Making up her mind about what he was showing her.

"I think..." He said after a while. "I think I wanna touch hands with everyone. All the people who work with me. And visitors too!" He added, thinking of Westfield. He wasn't supposed to know about him. But he did. He was part of Experiment 13's world and so he wanted to know him.

Roquette was silent a moment longer before, "You know, out here on this side of the glass we have a gesture called a 'hand-shake' when we meet new people. I think this is an acceptable adaptation."

...

Well, this was interesting.

The data on the file was fixed with its own set of encryptions separate from those of the rest of the database. Tim was still trying to decode it all. He wasn't sure what Experiment 13 was just yet. But it seemed like whatever the experiment was, was taking place in the secret lab in the core. That certainly explained why the file was so difficult to crack. Secret lab. Secret experiment. Secret file.

But Tim didn't need to wait to decrypt the file to find out what Experiment 13 was. He had the schematics for the whole station -the real schematics. He could find a way into the lab and see what it was all about first hand. That was why he was here, after all. To investigate.

Tim had been playing the part of Alvin Draper for well over a week. His mission was almost over. It was about time Red Robin got a chance to prowl.

He closed out of his hacking program and disconnected his PdA from the terminal. The download was at sixty-four percent.

Tim opened his locker, hidden behind the level 4 maintenance technician uniforms was what looked like an ordinary and unassuming laundry bag. Heavy green canvas. Draw-string closed. Sitting in the back of the locker, hidden in plain sight. Tim pulled the bag out and, opening it, withdrew a black and red body suit. Leather and kevlar. Tight and form fitting. Tim usually used dishwashing soap to help him slip it on. He had no such luxury here.

After several minuets of pulling and tugging and grunting and sighing -anyone listening to him would probably assume he was yanking the chain- Tim finally had the Red Robin suit on. All its complicated zippers and clasps and snaps fastened. Then, out came the boot and the glove. The belt -arguably most important of all. Finally the cowl. It covered his head and face. Leaving only his mouth and chin exposed. It very much resembled Batman's cowl only without the iconic bat-ears that made even his shadow terrifying.

But no cape.

Capes were impractical for zero gravity missions. They did not fall, and swish, and sway the same way they did on Earth. Their dramatic effect was lost in zero G and they became more of a liability than an asset. So no cape. Just the suit, cowl and belt. Most importantly the belt.

But Red Robin couldn't be seen walking out of Alvin Draper's barracks. So over the Red Robin suit, Tim slipped on one of his maintenance tech uniforms. With the cowl off, it just looked like he was wearing a turtleneck undershirt with just the high collar of the Robin suit sticking out from under the folded blue collar of the main-tech uniform.

Tim navigated his way to the nearest passage that connected the ring to the core cylinder. He could see the slope of the corridor, the floor curving up in front of and behind him as he walked. Like he was walking in a giant spoon. It was lucky, since he could see the feet of anyone approaching before they could see his face. It gave Tim ample warning before anybody could run into him by innocent happen-chance.

He did not leave the corridor for an air duct until he was at the passage to the core.

Climbing into the duct, just big enough for a leanly build adult to fit through. Inside the narrow space, he stripped out of the tech uniform and left it there. He would need it when he came back. Until then, it would just be in his way. He pulled the cowl back over his face and began pulling himself through the duct towards the core cylinder.

It became easier to pull himself along when he finally reached the core. The gravity left. There was no other force pulling on him but his own strength propelling him along. Tim checked the map he'd saved to his PDA at every turn and switchback to make sure he was headed in the right direction.

Finally, he reached what he thought was the secret lab.

Double checking, peering through the grating on the ventilation panel, Tim saw that it did, in fact, look like a lab of some kind.

A wide chamber that seemed to bubble out from a central holding tank. He was at the wrong angle to see what was in the tank, but he recognized a two-way mirror when he saw one. The scientists could see what was inside it, but whatever was inside could not see them. Computers, monitors, terminals, and consoles lined the walls, ceiling and floor of the chamber. Of course, if there was no gravity pulling you in a given direction, there was no need to follow such two-dimensional ideas when it came to design.

The frustrating thing was that the lab was full of people. Red Robin couldn't just burst out of the air ducts and jump on a computer. He would need to find a different way into the lab.

Looks like he would be orbiting Cadmus' secret a bit longer.

...

Experiment 13 lifted his head slightly at the sound of a new heartbeat.

He told Roquette that he wanted to start meeting everyone who worked with him. Thus far, she had acquiesced to his request. Each scientist in the lab had come up, introduced themselves over the intercom and placed their hand on the glass for Experiment 13 to feel with his TTK. When he heard this new heartbeat approaching, he expected the same thing. Approach the glass, an introduction over the intercomm and his own adaptation of what Roquette called a 'handshake'.

But then, the pulse stopped. Paused right outside the range that Experiment 13 had come to recognize as the boarders of 'the lab'. The heartbeat remained there for several minutes before finally retreating back the way it had come.

Experiment 13's curiosity was piqued. He wanted to meet the person that belonged to that pulse and find out what they were up to and why.

...


	4. Palm to Palm

Tim spent a great deal of his final week on Space Lab fashioning a way for himself to sneak into the secret laboratory in the core.

Using the backdoor he'd already set-up for himself, Tim once again hacked into the station's central database and created a fake position for himself. He couldn't use the name 'Alvin Draper' that identity was already in use as maintenance technician. So, from a random name generator he picked out 'Carl Grummet'. 'Carl' he decided was going to be an inspector for Cadmus 'quality control', which was a fancy word they used at Wayne Enterprises for 'making sure smart people didn't make stupid mistakes and fuck-over the city' (or in this case, the planet). That should allow Tim to slip inside the lab -for at least a little while.

Once his new ID was created, Tim had to actually make a keycard for him. That was ever so slightly more difficult, only because it involved the use of real materials and not just soft strings of coding on a computer terminal. Luckily, as a member of the engineering staff, he had access to everything he needed to make a keycard from scratch. The trick was to not arouse suspicion as to why a level 4 tech was requisitioning scrap plastic, blank ID chips, and photo-paper.

"I'm making a scrap book. Scrap booking is cool."

The easy part was molding the plastic to the proper shape and dimensions of an ID card. All cards were basically the same shape, whether they be credit cards, drivers license, hotel room keys, library cards, credit cards, ID badges, etc. Tim could make them in his sleep! (If he were so inclined.)

The tricky part was adding in the chip.

Once that was done, card made, blank chip imbedded and waiting to be written over, Tim inserted his soon-to-be makeshift ID card into the slot on his barrack's terminal. The identity, job, and security clearance he'd already created for himself was loaded onto the chip and suddenly 'Carl Grummet' became a real live person -as far as could be proven on paper on computer.

He took out 'Alvin Draper's color-contacts, deciding to give 'Carl Grummet' Tim Drake's natural blue eyes. Draper's artificially colored hair, however, would have to stay. But Tim gelled and combed it into a different style. A bit of professional grade costume paint -the kind they used in movies- changed his skin tone and added a few distinct facial marks that disassociated him from his other identity. If he'd brought a pair of glasses with him, Tim would have added those too. Prescription glasses were like the civilian equivalent of a cowl. You put them on and suddenly you're a completely different person! But sadly, he did not have the forethought to bring any with him and to steal a pair might raise alarms. That was not what he needed.

So no glasses.

His new look done, Tim took a number head-shots of 'Carl Grummet' and selected the most unassuming one to attach to his new keycard.

The last step was to laminate it all, and voila! He was good to go.

Except he still needed the clothes to look the part. 'Quality control' inspectors didn't really go around wearing maintenance tech uniforms. It was below their pay grade.

...

Westfield and Roquette drifted down the corridor.

The Chairman had not been pleased with the doctor's slow pace through out the project. Their main financial contributor for the Project was becoming impatient. He wanted his weapon and he wanted it sooner rather than later. In his impatience, said benefactor was putting pressure on Westfield to start delivering results. Westfield, in turn, was putting pressure on Roquette to accelerate her pace. The homo-kryptonian hybrid was supposed to have begun his combat readiness testing last week.

"Our partner is becoming restless." He told her, not bothering to mask the irritation in his own voice. "He wants to see a return on his investments."

Roquette brushed an errant strand of blond hair behind her ear and glared back at her employer. "Tell our mysterious financier that he'll get a return when the subject is ready. Not before. You can't rush science. The subject isn't mentally prepared to-"

"Then start preparing him." Westfield said as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Roquette grabbed a wall handle to halt her forward momentum. Westfield likewise stopped in a similar fashion, looking bat at her with impatience.

"I have changed project objectives for this, mixed and matched genetic donors, artificially aged the subject, what does our anonymous benefactor want?"

"He wants you to do your job!" Westfield snarled. "You're not the only geneticist in the universe, Roquette. You're not even the only one on Earth. If you can't meet the deadlines set for you, then you will be replaced. Do we understand each other?"

"I understand."

...

Tim was able to swipe a lab suit in his size from the laundry room. A stark white jumpsuit meant to be worn over other clothing with two pockets on the hips and one breast pocket. Lab coats were out. They did about as well in zero G as capes did. Floating about. Getting caught on things. Getting in the way. The scientist of the secret lab in the core wore jumpsuits instead.

He wore the same pair of boots that he did with his tech uniform. They were standard issue spacefarer boots. A pair of ordinary civilian cool weather gloves to prevent his fingerprints being left on anything he might touch. Finally a clip board to complete his look.

Carl Grummet's ID and keycard were pinned to the jumpsuit and Tim was ready to sneak into a lab.

One thing he hated about the zero gravity areas of Space Lab was that every time he walked through a door or a hatch, he had to do a quick paradigm shift to avoid vertigo. There was no one unifying directionality in zero G, so he could walk through a door and then suddenly, the 'floor' would be to his left, the 'ceiling' to his right, and the rest of the walls were 'up' and 'down'. It was enough to make a person dizzy. Luckily, Tim spent enough time tumbling, twisting, and flipping through mid-air that it didn't affect him as badly as it might have another person. But that didn't change the fact that he still felt like the place was designed by Sara Winchester.

God, Tim hated space travel!

But it was usually a safe navigation technique to always orient yourself so that the door you needed to pass through was 'down'. Using this technique and following the schematic he'd pulled from the core's computer, 'Carl Grummet' found his way to the secret lab for his 'quality control' inspection.

A few people looked up from what they were doing when he entered, but he was wearing a lab suit and had an ID badge with a red colored security tag. So, for all they could tell, he belonged there just as much as they did. Most ignored him, turning their attention back to their own work. The few who's gazes lingered, Tim made eye-contact with, offered a friendly smile and wished a good afternoon to.

"I'm here for the inspection." He told them. Tapping his ID badge before putting pencil to clipboard. "I'm just here to observe. Go about your business."

For the most part, they did. Tim drifted into the center of the lab, reorienting himself so that the large two-way mirror of the tank was 'center'. That was when he was him.

A man.

On the other side of the two-way mirror was a man. He looked to be around Tim's own age, maybe a few years younger. Thick and muscular. Ebony black hair. Crystal-blue eyes that seemed to glow with an internal light. Kryptonian eyes. Oh my god!

Tim schooled his features into a blank mask of neutrality. Trying not to show to much interest in the man in the tank, he pushed himself towards the nearest scientist bent over a console. His eyes studied the screen, what looked to be a program mapping out the DNA strand of an alien genotype. But his brain didn't quite register what his eyes were seeing. His brain was still processing what he'd just seen instead. Well, Bruce had sent him up here to find out what Cadmus did with the Kryptonian Ambassador's DNA sample. It looks like he found out.

The man looked almost exactly like the Ambassador! From that rugged cleft in his chin to that ridiculous boyish spit-curl. But that shouldn't be possible. He looked to be Tim's age, maybe a few years younger. Early twenties. Maybe late teens if he was being generous. But Kal-El had donated his gene sample only a few months ago. If Tim was going to find a living person at all, instead of just a spot in a petri dish, he would be an infant, a new born. Not an adult!

"Have you introduced yourself yet?" Asked the man Tim was hovering over.

Tim unclipped his ID from his jumpsuit and shoved it in the man's face, trying to sound as impatient as possible when he said, "Carl Grummet, quality control inspector."

He pushed Tim's hand out of his face and said irritably, "I meant to the subject. New policy is everyone in the lab has to introduce themselves to him. That goes for guests and inspectors too."

Tim was given a light shove, and the next thing he knew, he was drifting across the room towards the two-way mirror and Ambassador Kal-El's artificially engineered son.

Up close, Tim could see the subtle differences between them. From a distance, the younger man looked almost exactly like the Ambassador. He could have been Kal-El's clone rather than his son. But on closer inspection, Tim could see the eyebrows were thinner, the forehead higher, the cheekbones slanted wrong, his lips fuller. The Red Robin couldn't recognize any features as being distinctly Lois' but it was clear that there was some human blood mixed in him. Cadmus had done it. They succeeded and did exactly what they said they would do.

They created a human-kryptonian hybrid.

But why did they age him to physically resemble an adult? They must have used some sort of accelerated growth technique. There was no other way to get a viable, living hybrid in just the few short months Cadmus had the Ambassador's DNA. So, why did they want an adult hybrid?

Tim found the intercomm switch fitted into the glass. He held the button down as he said, "Hello?"

The hybrid drifted over to the two-way mirror and Tim noted that he didn't push off of anything to propel himself in the zero gravity. Kryptonian flight ability, the Red Robin reminded himself and he filed the information away in the back of his mind,not knowing if it would become important or not later. The hybrid pressed his own intercomm button and replied, "Hello."

Okay, what were they supposed to do now? Tim cleared his throat. "I'm Carl Grummet, quality control inspector." He said. "Uh... are they treating you well here?"

Great Timbo, real great. You sound so professional and confident. You won't blow your cover at all.

The hybrid looked confused for a moment and Tim had to wonder if he could see through the glass. Kryptonians were also supposed to have X-ray vision and see through solid objects. A two-way mirror would be nothing. Unless the glass was leaded.

"I guess so." Said the hybrid. "I don't exactly have any other frame of reference to compare it to."

Idiot! Tim found himself resisting the urge to slam his head against the glass. Of course he would think they were treating him well no mater what they did to him because he wouldn't have any concept of anything else! 'This is level one stuff, Tim!' He reminded himself angrily. 'Don't get thrown completely off kilter just because you got one big surprise.'

"Put your hand on the glass." Said the hybrid.

Almost robotically, Tim did as he was told. Placing his gloved palm flat against the two-way mirror. "Okay..."

The hybrid also placed his hand on the glass and Tim could have sworn he felt almost a tremor ripple over the surface. Then the hybrid moved his hand so that it was directly over Tim's. They would be touching palm to palm if the glass weren't in the way and the Red Robin found himself wondering how he'd known that his hand was there without using X-ray vision to see through the glass.

Then he felt something that was almost like another hand brushing against his.

"What the fuck!?" He pushed off the glass and went sailing across the room to be caught my a pair of scientists before he could impact any sensitive equipment. "What the hell was that?"

They all laughed.

"I guess they didn't brief you on the Subject's special ability." Said one.

"He got ya good, didn't he." Commented another. "It is a might unsettling at first."

"Well, go back." Said a third. "Before you hurt his feelings."

Tim found himself once again being pushed towards the tank and the two-way mirror. He placed his palm flat to the glass again and watched the hybrid move his own hand to the new location. This time, Tim did not jump away when he felt what was most definitely another hand press against his palm through the glass. He didn't know what this was, but it certainly wasn't a kryptonian ability.

"Your hand feels weird." Said the hybrid over the intercomm.

With his free hand, Tim held down the button on his own side to reply. "Probably because I'm wearing a glove."

"Oh."

Then, because he couldn't be more than a few months old and never seen the outside of this cell before, Tim asked, "Do you know what a glove is?"

"Yes." The younger man nodded. "They implanted me with knowledge before I became conscious."

Well, that certainly explained why he was able to speak and communicate so clearly. Not many six-month-olds would know the phrase 'frame of reference' or the word 'conscious'. Artificially grown, artificially aged, artificially educated. He was an artificial person and that made Tim sad for some reason, though he did not know why.

Without thinking, he blurted out, "What's your name?"

The hybrid once again blinked in confusion.

"Do you have a name?" Tim amended.

"I..." The hybrid paused, unsure. "I am the only viable, living result of Experiment 13. So... you can call me that. But, Doctor Roquette sometimes calls me 'Kid'. That works too."

"Those aren't names." Tim informed him. He suddenly wondered about this man's parents back on Earth. Kal-El and his human wife, Lois Lane-El. Had they already picked out a name for him? For the faceless, genderless, mystery child they hoped to get. Jeff, if its a boy, and Stacey if its a girl?

Someone coughed behind him and Tim was reminded that he was still supposed to be under cover. He snatched up his clipboard from where it drifted on the air currents near him and made a note. "Right. Well, I'll be sure to report that back to my superiors. Now, lets take a look at the computers. Got to make sure all your files are in order."

They let him poke around the computers for a while. Answered his questions when he asked them and did not try and stop him when Tim got bold enough to pull out his PDA and jack into one of the consoles. They did ask when he began a file download. But he brushed it off as just making sure their files and data lined up with the date they had back at HQ dirt-side. In fact, the mission went perfectly until Roquette entered.

She grabbed a wall handle, stopping dead when she saw someone she didn't recognize bent over one of the lab's computers. "Who are you!?"

Tim remained cool as he flashed her his ID and introduced himself for what was probably the fourth time, "Carl Grummet, quality control inspector." He offered her an apologetic smile. "Just making sure everything's on schedule."

"Schedule!" And her eyes flashed with sudden ire. "You tell that bastard Westfield that he can send all the inspectors and baby-sitters he wants to breath down my neck! But I know my job and this project will flow at the pace I deem necessary. Not any faster! Now get out!"

Tim sputtered helplessly for a moment. That had not been a reaction he expected.

"I said get out!" She repeated, and grabbed Tim by the collar of of jumpsuit to throw him out the still open door.

...

The download of Space Lab's central database was at ninety-eight percent. It was almost complete. By the time Tim had to leave on the shuttle tomorrow, it would be done. He would have completed his mission -all mission objectives- and could return to Gotham.

Gotham. Glorious, wonderful, beautiful, dank, smogy, putrid Gotham. He loved that city. That city on Earth. Firm, solid, supportive mother Earth. Where up was up, down was down, and Tim never had to worry about being sucked out of air-locks, out into the freezing death of space. Earth. He could not wait to get home.

But there was one more thing Red Robin wanted to do before he left.

Once again donning the suit, Tim followed the same secret path he'd used on his first reconnaissance of the secret lab. Only this time, he took an alternate path through the ventilation that wound around to the chamber they kept the hybrid in. Experiment 13. The Kid. Tim didn't like any of those names (and he used that word loosely). He needed a real and proper name. Something-El.

He found a vent that supplied the chamber with fresh air and whispered through the grating, "Can you hear me?" A pause. "Kryptonians are supposed to have super-hearing, if you can hear me, make some motion to acknowledge."

A pair of crystal-blue eyes appeared, staring through the grating at him and Tim jumped. "Jesus!"

"You're not really an inspector, are you?" Experiment 13 whispered.

"No, I'm not." Tim admitted. "I'm a detective working for Batman Inc. Your father hired me to find you."

Okay, so that wasn't exactly true. Kal-El hadn't hire Batman Inc -Batman Inc could not be bought. The Ambassador had just been confiding in his friend Bruce Wayne. Bruce and sent him to find out what Cadmus did with Kal-El's DNA. None of them would have guessed that he would discover a living, talking person!

"My father?" One ebony eyebrow was raised in skepticism. "You mean one of my genetic donors?"

"Yes." Tim agreed. "Your genetic donor is your father. Ambassador Kal-El of Krypton. Do you recognize the name?"

There was a prolonged pause. Then, "Krypton is a planet in the Rao System. It is the home of one of my parent-races. But, I've never heard of anyone named Kal-El."

"Kal-El is your father." Tim informed him, feeling very much like he were acting out a poorly drafted alternate script for The Empire Strikes Back. "He and his human wife gave samples of their DNA to Cadmus hoping to make a child. Cadmus made you. But they cut off communication with your parents, so I was sent to find you."

Experiment 13 was silent for one... two... three beats. Then, finally, "That sounds made-up. Why should I believe you? You've already lied once. I've heard you crawling around in the walls. You seem very suspicious."

Tim paused. Thought. Decided to take a gamble. "Then call security on me if that's the way you feel."

They hybrid continued to stare at him through the ventilation grate. Those crystal-blue eyes boring into him and Tim wondered if he was trying to use his X-ray vision to see under his cowl.

Finally, Experiment 13 said, "What's you name? Your real name."

Tim almost smiled. His gut feeling was right. The Kid wouldn't call security on him. He did want to trust the suspicious masked man hiding in the air ducts. "I can't tell you my real name." He said. "To do my job, I have to hide my identity, that's why I wear a mask. But when I'm in costume, I'm called Red Robin."

"Red Robin..." The hybrid repeated as if testing the name on his tongue. "Put your hand to the grate."

And they repeated the odd palm to palm ceremony from earlier.

...


	5. Doing Something

Lois Lane was not one easily satisfied with sitting back and waiting for things to work out. Because, if left alone, things rarely if ever worked out well -or even at all. Prior to her marriage to a high-profile political figure and being surrounded by a small flotilla of over-powered alien body guards, she had been an investigative reporter. That meant it was her job to uncover truths, solve mysteries, and stay informed on what was really going on in the word -and off world.

So, when Cadmus had suddenly and mysteriously cut off communication with her and her husband not long after they offered up gene samples for their genetic research, her reporter's instincts were piqued and her suspicions were aroused. Lois was ready to march on over to the main Cadmus facility just outside of Metropolis and demand what was going on.

But Kal, bless his naive little heart, was the overly trusting and obnoxiously optimistic type. 

He convinced his headstrong wife to wait a while before rushing off half-cocked and making a scene. He reminded her that she had -officially- retired from the Daily Planet (though, she still wrote articles for the paper under various pen-names), and was now living her life in the public spotlight as the wife of Krypton's ambassador to Earth. It would do no one any good if she made a public spectacle.

So, against her better judgment and years of prior habit, Lois did nothing. Lois waited. Lois Lane, now Lois Lane-El, sat on her hands and did nothing, waiting for something to happen, but seeing nothing change. Kal was a sweetheart. Really, he was. It was that same unwavering optimism and belief in the 'good' in all people that had first attracted the intrepid reporter to the foreign dignitary in the first place. But in this case, Kal was wrong and Lois was tired of waiting. It was long past time to do something. 

So, Lois did something.

Falsifying IDs and procuring uniforms was not difficult for her. She was doing that for her stories long before she had access to her husband's resources. It was ditching the damn bodyguards that gave her real trouble. Any time she left the house or the consulate, they were there. She never had to put up with this kind of crap as a private citizen. But then, as a civilian she hadn't been as prime kidnap material as she was being the wife of a high-profile diplomat. Oh, the sacrifices we make for love. 

But while they might have super-speed, could see through walls, and hear over great distances, Lois did have one advantage over her kryptonian escorts. She was an ordinary human, and therefore must be completely incapable of giving them trouble. In other words, they under-estimated her. Their overconfidence was their weakness. Plus, Lois didn't need to lose them indefinitely, just until she was aboard the next shuttle to Space Lab. Once the rocket was space-born, there really wasn't anything they could do, whether they knew where she was or not. 

So, here she was, dressed in a Cadmus uniform watching the previous shift crew disembark, and waiting for her shift's turn to board. Lois inconspicuously checked her watched. By her estimation, she had about thirty more seconds before her escort realized she was not, in fact, powdering her nose in the women's restroom. After that, it was anywhere from three seconds to three minuets before she was tracked to her current position. Then her bodyguard would have to go to the space port's main office, find whoever was in charge of the Space Lab shuttle launch and get them to halt the boarding. As fast as kryptonians were, with all the shuffling the humans in the office would do, Lois would already be on the shuttle by the time her escort managed to put in the request. 

Thank goodness for human sluggishness!

Lois smiled to herself as she watched the previous shift disembark. She checked her watch, trying not to look like she was in a hurry. Once the previous passengers were all off the shuttle crew would then have to do a quick clean-up of the isles and seats in the cabin -just like they did on airplanes-, make sure all loose objects were secured, and that all their equipment was still in tip-top shape. Then, the shuttle had to be fitted with new rockets and propellant tanks. Breaking free from Earth's gravity was no easy matter. All that would take time. Hm, perhaps this had not been the best thought out plan ever.

Darn human sluggishness!

But Lois was sick and tired of following Kal's plan to sit and hope for the best. She understood her husbands feelings. He didn't want to cause a scandal and stir up tensions between Earth and Krypton over their very personal family matter. Kal's father, Jor-El was a member of Krypton's ruling council. If he found out that his son and daughter-in-law contributed samples of their DNA to an Earth-based genetics project in the hopes of producing an offspring and then were double crossed, he would demand some form of reparation be payed by Cadmus. 

The problem was, Cadmus was well funded and had a veritable fleet of lawyers and attorneys held at the ready to defend it to their last professional breaths. In addition to that, several Cadmus Projects were being carried out under the direct purview of the government. A foreign body accusing them misconduct could be interpreted as accusing the government of misconduct. That was a big loud diplomatic mess! And since Kal was the Kryptonian Ambassador, it would be his mess. So, yes, Lois more than understood her husband's reasons for sitting quietly on his anger. 

But Lois Lane was not a diplomat. True, she had married one, but she did not work at the consulate and had nothing to do with politics -with the exception of the articles she occasionally still wrote under various pennames. Lois Lane was a reporter. While she had -officially- retired from that business and resigned herself to being the quiet and demure trophy-wife she told herself she'd never be, she would never give up her passion and thirst for the truth. Cadmus was hiding something up there on their orbital Space Lab and she intended to expose it. An article published by the Planet under one of her many pennames would do. Kal and the Kryptonian Consulate need not get involved. Then, responsibility would fall on the private investors and government divisions that funded the Cadmus Project to do a full inquiry. 

And if that didn't work, well, there was always the follow-up article. 

Lois was pulled from her thoughts by a light tap on the shoulder. 

She turned, her eyes going wide when she saw that it was Kara Zor-El who looked back at her. "Hey, Lois!" She smiled innocently. "The boys are looking for you."

Damn it!

Kara was not one of Lois' body guards. Kara Zor-El was Kal's cousin, visiting from Earth over her season-recess from the Science Academy on Krypton. She had been on planet for only a few short weeks already and yet she seemed to have soaked up the local culture like a bouncy blond sponge. Gone were the solid-colored robes bearing the family crest, the heavy headdresses indicating her status, under-suits and gloves that made sure every inch of skin was covered from neck to toes. Instead, Kara now wore Daisy Duke style denim shorts, tight tees that were short enough to leave her midriff exposed, and bright red boots with large, heavy looking platforms that made it look like she had two bricks strapped to her feet. 

She and Kal fought about her wardrobe almost constantly for the first week and half of her visit over her dramatic wardrobe change. Finally, they both agreed to disagree and stopped snarling at each other. He still gave her critical and disapproving glares and she still made rude gestures simply to bother him. But for the most part, they had reached a piece. Lois viewed Kara's behavior and dress as a sort of Kryptonian Rumspringa. She had temporarily left the rigid and confining society she was used to on Krypton and was experience life on another world for the first time. At the end of the season-recess she would go back home and behave like a good little kryptonian girl again. 

"Kara!" Lois was ashamed to admit she jumped. It was alrigth though, her cover was already blown. It wasn't like she could do any more damage. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, duh!" She huffed, placing her fists on her hips. 

All around them people were beginning to stare. Yup. Her plan was well and good shot to heck now. There was no way Lois Lane, a jilted and angry contributor to a project, was getting on that shuttle. To much attention. Damn it, Kara!

"What's goin' on?" She asked. "Oh! Were you on a story? I'm so sorry!"

...

Tim yawned loudly as she handed his collection of jump-drives to Bruce. Each was meticulously labeled so that the original Batman would know in what order to begin decrypting them. 

He was shuttle-lagged and tired and just wanted to go home to his own apartment, and sleep in his own bed, in normal gravity, with the street-noise of his home town to lull him to sleep. But Tim still had to give some sort of oral report before the Dark Knight would release him. 

"I trust the mission went well."

It wasn't really a question coming from Bruce. Tim had returned safe and in one piece, he brought back with him the harddrives containing Space Lab's central database, no alarms had been set off, his cover was still in place in case a follow-up mission was needed. Yes. Everything went well. Tim nodded, suppressing another yawn.

"Did you discover what Cadmus did with Kal-El's DNA sample?"

Here, Tim paused, unsure how exactly to explain. "I, uh... I found an actual living person."

Bruce was silent for a moment as he just stared at the Red Robin. Space Lab was full of actual living people. Scientists, engineers, volunteer test-subjects, non-volunteer test subjects, technicians... But Bruce was pretty sure that wasn't what Tim meant by 'an actual living person'. Did that then imply that Cadmus had managed to produce a viable living hybrid of Kal and Lois' DNA? But how? There hadn't been enough time to bring a healthy fetus to term. -Unless they wanted it to be three months premature. 

"Explain."

So, Tim told him. He explained about the secret lab in the station's core. How he at first thought it was unrelated to his main mission objectives, but decided to investigate anyway. Told him about Experiment 13 and how he couldn't be much older than a few months, yet physically resembled a young adult. About his strange ability to create a tactile telekinetic field, which wasn't a kryptonian power. And, finally, as an addendum, Tim added how sheltered and naive he appeared and commented that it might be difficult to acclimate him to the rest of the world and even his real parents. 

"So, how would you like to proceed?" Tim finished by asking. 

Bruce steepled his fingers in thought. "I'll need some time to go over the data that you brought me." He said. "Oracle might want to take a look at it too. See if she can create a tap of her own into their mainframe using their own encryption." A pause. "...And someone should inform the Ambassador that he has a son."

...

"Damn it, Lois! This isn't like the influence peddling scandals or weapons trafficking conspiracies you're used to going after!" Kal passed back and forth in front of the couch his wife was reclining on. 

Their private home was modest for people of their economic status. Prior to ascension to the position of Kryptonian Ambassador to Earth, Kal-El had done a bit of sight-seeing around the globe and developed a certain fondness for the rustic homeyness of Kansas farmland. As such, most of their furniture was in shades of dark wood and wicker. The cushions, earth-tones of green, gold, and brown. Lois fluffed a plaid patterned pillow before placing it behind her back and refused to look guilty. Kal, as a general rule, was concerned whenever she was chasing a story. But this one was different. This time he was good and truly worried. 

"This is personal!" He continued. "Its something that concerns us directly. Did you really think you could expose it under one of your pennames and not have our family get dragged into the conspiracy? What about when my father got wind of it and he convinced the rest of the council to demand some form of appeasement from Earth?" 

She waited for him to pause for breath before saying, "At least its better than doing nothing!"

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, in all seriousness. 

"Anything is better than sitting on your as and waiting for 'man's better nature' to win out." She stood up from the couch. Balancing on her tip toes to climb closer to his eye-level, Lois continued, "I look for the truth. That's what I do, Kal. That's why you married me. You kryptonians just love your Truth. You've got a whole holiday devoted to it. So now, you tell me, what's wrong with looking for the truth of what they did with out DNA samples when they promised us a baby and then just took off!?"

Kal sighed as the fight drained out of him. He was not, by nature, a very confrontational man. He detested fighting and always preferred peace and civility to violence and anger. 

"Its not as simple as that." He reminded her, more of a muttered statement than an actual argument. 

Already on her tip-toes, Lois wrapped her arms around him and pull herself up to give her husband an affectionate kiss on the lips. Their hight difference was really more annoying that his seemingly unwavering belief in the good of all people. "I know." She assured him. "Its a delicate situation and has to be handled with care. But you also know that I don't do well with sitting and waiting for problems to solve themselves. Because, sweetheart, problems don't solve themselves. Someone has got to do something."

"Alright, Lois." Kal finally ceded. "I understand. Maybe... maybe we can ask someone from the Justice League to quietly look into it. Or maybe Batman Inc., since they seem better suited to quiet, stealthy stuff. Bruce it my friend. I'll call him tomorrow and see if he can arrange a meeting between us and Batman or another member. Will that satisfy you?"

"Yes. That would satisfy me."

...

Tim would have been lying if he said it didn't feel good to be sitting behind his desk again. Working in his office at Wayne Tower as Timothy Drake-Wayne again. It was Drake-Wayne when he was at the company, or expecting special treatment at fancy restaurants when he was out on the town. Just plane Drake was a name only used when he looked in the mirror anymore. But 'Drake-Wayne' was a good name. Far more reputable than just 'Wayne' by itself -if it wasn't to bold to say. 

While Bruce Wayne's public persona was that of a philandering, empty-headed fop, who couldn't button his own pants without help and spent his money frivolously, the public persona of Timothy Drake-Wayne was very different. As far as the public was concerned, Tim was a quiet and studious man and always had been. When he was a teenager, Tim frequent absences from the public eye were explained away as private apprenticeships or internships under very prestigious and completely fictitious tutors. His admission to the best collages in the country were assured even without Bruce's checkbook to seal the deal. After graduating collage with two business degrees, a certificate in marketing and a bachelor of the arts for photography (purely for the heck of it, he told reporters), Tim was the youngest person to be granted a spot on the Wayne Enterprise board of directors. 

Of course, Bruce and Lucius both got a lot of flak for that and were accused of nepotism by several critics and reporters. But Tim hadn't steered the company wrong yet. And so the public was forced to concede that Timothy Drake-Wayne must be some kind of genius. 

His public person was so well solidified that when Bruce finally went public with Batman Inc., no one thought to wonder if the boy that he had adopted and then given a position in his company could also be connected to the vigilantes under Wayne's employ. In fact, no one wondered if any of Wayne's lost boys could be any of the Batman's sidekicks. They all kept their public lives so well insulated from their secret lives. 

So, it was a curious thing when, sitting in his office going of the financial reports for the last two weeks he'd missed that Red Robin, rather than Tim Drake, got a memo from Bruce Wayne, not Batman. 

The message read: "Meeting at Ambassador's home in Metropolis. After dark. Bring all relevant materials."

Tim deleted the message the moment he finished reading it and erased it's cyber-trail from the rest of the company's mainframe. It was a matter of public record now that Bruce Wayne used his income from Wayne Enterprises to fund Batman and his associates. But it was only rumored that some of those associates, or even the Batman himself, actually worked for the company by day. An email-memo like that would be like a smoking gun to anyone who knew how to dig it out of the virtual trash. 

Tim sighed. He spun his chair around and looked at the low afternoon sun. It was maybe about four hours until dark. How long would it take Red Robin to get from Gotham to Metropolis? Turning his chair back to face forward, Tim looked at the stack of papers still on his desk. Well, it looked like studious and scholarly, business genius Timothy Drake-Wayne was gonna stay behind in his work for a bit longer. 

There was a different job he had to do.

...

Kal fidgeted uncomfortably as he watched Bruce swirl the glass of wine that had been offered him. 

Bruce was a good friend. But he can be a tad difficult to have a serious conversation with. He enjoyed the luxury his wealth allowed him to live in and insulate himself from the seriousness of 'the read world'. Whenever anyone tried to discuss a 'sober topic' with him, the Gotham Prince would usually brush it off flippantly, calling whatever topic it was a frightful bore and suggesting they instead talk about something like the latest cruise or sky trip he was about to go on, or had just come back from, or the varying virtues of beautiful women from different countries. If this were the 17th Century, Bruce would be called a 'fop'. Instead, most people just called him an idiot.

But, every now and again, Kal could swear he saw a glimmer of shrew intelligence behind those midnight-blue eyes. It sometimes made him wonder if the billionaire's obnoxious behavior and frippery were nothing more than an act. When he went public that it was him that had been funding Batman all those years, Kal's theories were confirmed. But he still didn't give up his act. Bruce remained a shallow, thoughtless... fop. 

"This is fantastic stuff, Kal!" He said, taking a generous sip of the kryptonian wine. "I wonder how much it would cost to import this commercially? You have to remind me to ask Lucius about it next time I go to the office. He'll run the numbers for me."

"Uh... you might wanna go a little easy on that." Kal warned. "Its a bit stronger than what you're used to."

"Right, right." Bruce waved off his warning, touching the lip of the glass to his lips a second time before setting it down. "Everything from Krypton is stronger here."

Kal once again fought the urge to fidget with discomfort. Yes, everything from Krypton was stronger on Earth thanks to the yellow light of their sun, Sol. It had interesting effects on kryptonian bio-chemistry. Even non-living organic mater like fabrics and wines became more durable or more potent under Sol's influence. "Anyway..." Kal began, trying to swing back to the original reason he asked his friend over. "Bruce, I didn't invite you over to get plastered off my wine. I have a favor to ask."

"Oh?" He blinked those midnight-blue eyes in innocent curiosity. But Kal got the eery feeling that it was a carefully measured curiosity, almost like he already knew what the kryptonian was about to ask but didn't want to let on that he knew more than an empty-headed fop should. 

"Do you... do you remember at the gala a while back, I mentioned that Lois and I were having problems with Cadmus Labs?"

Bruce's whole demeanor changed. He cleared his throat and leaned forward slightly, almost as if they were conspirators laying plans and sharing secrets. His voice was uncharacteristically serious when he asked, "Have you heard anything from them?"

"No." Kal admitted. "Nothing's changed since we last spoke. But, Lois and I have been talking, and we decided... Since you fund Batman Incorporated, if you might be able to ask them to look into it? I would, of course, compensate them for their time and services."

Bruce smiled an ironic smile and Kal just could not guess why. "Batman Inc. is not for hire. None of its operatives can be bought. They do what they do because they feel its right, and no one else will. That's why I support their endeavors. They're not in it for profit and I'm not their commander and chief."

For some reason, that last statement sounded suspiciously like a lie to Kal, but he couldn't understand why. Bruce, or rather, the public face of Bruce Wayne that he was familiar with, would make a terrible commander and chief for a band of vigilante detectives like the men and women of Batman Inc. And yet... Kal had thought that Bruce might have some command over them. After all, he signed their paychecks. 

"So then, you can't help me." The kryptonian hung his head low.

"I didn't say that." Bruce smiled, and this time, that ironic smile was bold and amused. "As it happens, I know exactly what Cadmus did with your DNA samples."

"You do!?" Kal shot to his feet, knocking over the heavy armchair he sat in. It clattered to the floor with a loud THUNK, a punctuation mark to his exclamation. 

Bruce nodded, and that thoughtless, flippant attitude slipped back into his voice when he said, "Mozeltov! Its a boy!"

Kal-El just stared at him, not understanding. "You mean...?"

"I mean..." Bruce leaned farther forward, voice once again going low and sober, like a conspirator whispering his secrets. "...Cadmus succeeded in doing exactly what they told you they'd do. They made a human-kryptonian hybrid using your DNA. Kal, you have a son."

"I have a..." His legs went weak and the kryptonian barely register the short feeling of falling before his knees impacted the burgundy carpet. "I have a son. Lois and I have a son! But, wait... how do you know this?"

"From me." A dark figure tumbled in through the open window.

He climbed to his feet with far more grace than his entrance would have lead one to believe he possessed. But the reason for his sudden and graceless introduction appeared the moment he regained his footing. Nam-Ek and Aether-Ka, two members of the consulate's security staff appeared hovering just outside the window. 

"Apologies for the interruption, Ambassador." Aether was quick to explain. "I don't know how this intruder managed to evade my men, but I'll remove him right away!"

"I have sensitive information for the Ambassador." Said the intruder quickly. 

"Then you make an appointment like everyone else!" She snapped.

"Stand down, hot-stuff." Bruce waved her and Nam-Ek off. "He's with me."

Aether bristled disapprovingly. 

Kal just stared at them all in confusion. Finally, after a prolonged pause in which he decided that he had no idea what had just happened but would have an easier time figuring it out without a window full of people bickering, Kal said, "Thank you for your diligence, Aether-Ka. You do your House honor. But if Bruce is willing to vouch for him, let the intruder stay."

Aether and Nam-Ek bowed reluctantly and flew away.

"You're late." Bruce scolded the man the moment they were gone.

Kal studied him, trying to decide which of the masked vigilantes that made up Batman Inc he was. Not particularly tall, but not short either. He was of average height for a human male. He wore a cowl like Batman's but without pointed ears, the crown of his head was smooth. In fact it almost reminded Kal-El of... well it looked like a condom. The cape was black like the cowl, and other than the fact that it gave him the appearance of melting into shadows, was completely unremarkable. The uniform he wore was a tight jumpsuit in red with black trip on the legs, sides and arms. There was, of course, the famous Utility Belt, that almost all of Batman's associates carried, but he also sported two extra belts crossed over his chest. And where those belts met, was the figure of a bird. 

One of the Robins, maybe? 

"Kal," Bruce began again, once again commanding the kryptonian's attention. "You asked me how I knew about your son, this is how. After we talked last time, I asked Red Robin here to look into it. I'm sorry I went behind you back, but I felt it was something that needed investigating. Not just for you."

Kal-El didn't really process all of that. His mind had jumped back to the revelation that he had a son. He and Lois had a son. They were parents! He imagined the baby in his mind. Cute and chubby, mostly bald as newborns tended to be, but with a tuft of dark hair. Of course he would have dark hair, Kal and Lois both had dark hair. With his eyebrows but Lois' eyes. Lois's cheekbones and his chin. His forehead and Lois' nose... He would be so adorable! Their precious child. They had a son!

Red Robin was talking. 

"... was able to sneak aboard Space Lab during their bi-weekly shift change. While there, I discovered a suspicious looking project." Explained the masked vigilante. "At first I thought it was unrelated to your dilemma, but I investigated anyway. That was how I discovered him."

"You found my son." Kal climbed back to his feel just long enough to right his fallen chair before collapsing in it. "I have a son... Tell me about him! Is he healthy? Does he have someone with him? Someone holding him? What color are his eyes? Its only been six months! Was he premature? Is he undersized? How are they taking care of him? What went wrong? Was that why Cadmus never contacted us?"

"Ambassador, please!" Red Robin held up a hand, a silent plea for the kryptonian to stop talking. "There's something you need to know. I haven't finished processing all their files yet, so I don't know how they did it, but your son is not an infant. Its true, he's only a few months old, but physically he resembles someone in their late teens. Your son is almost an adult." 

"What?" Kal blinked at him. Then, raising one critical eyebrow, he asked, "But how- Why!?"

"Red Robin's investigation is still on-going." Bruce cut in. "So, he can't share all the details with you right now, Kal. But I wanted you to know about your son, so I convinced him to come and tell you what he knew. He's going back to Space Lab at the next shift change to continue the investigation. Until then, he can't tell you anything more."

"Uh, of course." It was a true testament to his diplomacy that he was able to force out that cordial submission. Kal wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything. But he also knew the necessity of withholding details of an investigation while it was still on-going. It was a sign of just how much their friendship meant to Bruce that he managed to convince one of Batman Inc's masked vigilantes to share. Until Red Robin finished his investigation, Kal would try his best not to hinder it. "If there's anything I can do to help, please, just ask. I want to help."

"The best thing you can do, Kal, is just be with your wife and let-"

"Actually." Red Robin cut him off. "Ambassador, does your son have a name? I mean, did you and your wife agree on names for the child you thought you were gonna get?"

Bruce gave the masked man a disapproving look, which Red Robin pointedly ignored. 

Kal-El paused a moment. He didn't know how it would help the investigation, but if he said it would help... "Lois and I agreed that she would get to choose an Earth-name if it was a girl, and I would choose a kryptonian for a boy. For my son, the name I decided on was 'Kon'. My son's name is Kon-El."

"Kon-El..." Red Robin repeated. "Thank you, Ambassador. That will help."

...


	6. Training & Brunch

Experiment 13 dodged a giant robotic arm as the mechanical monstrosity lunged for him. He didn't like these new tests Westfield had ordered. 

It was true that the artificially created demi-kryptonian often complained to Roquette that he was board. His mind unengaged. His body restless in the tiny space that was his whole world. When she had come to tell him that he would be going outside -as in, outside-outside- for special testing and training, he had been ecstatic. Over-joyed. He'd never been outside the six walls of his cell before, let alone outside of the station. Needless to say, he was excited. 

They took him far from the station in a medium sized EVA shuttle-pod. It was the first time Experiment 13 had ever seen Roquette with his own eyes. She was not what he expected. Petite, with medium-length blond hair, she wore the standard issue white jumpsuit that was the space-equivalent of a lab coat. But she only wore it up to her hips, the sleeves of the suit's top were wrapped around her waist, allowing her to show off a rather brightly colored and loudly patterned top that looked like it had clawed its way out of the 90s hair-metal era, gotten lost in a 70s disco, then died on her torso. Experiment 13 was pretty sure the other scientist who worked with him didn't dress like her. 

The shuttle-pod decelerated when they neared a debris field. 

As it was explained to him, this was where several independent defense contractors who made weapons for the government tested their effectiveness. One of Cadmus' sponsors had been able to reserve the field specifically for this Project. They were going to test Experiment 13's combat readiness and begin training. 

When he asked why they needed to know if he could fight and why they wanted to teach him to fight, the demi-kryptonian was quickly stonewalled. No one told him anything. 

He was then pitted against three mobile-suit type robots -donated by Lex Corp, whatever that was. They weren't really 'giant robots', they were more like giant robotic exo-suits. Each one contained a human pilot and so Experiment 13 couldn't just destroy them. But he didn't know how to disable them either. No one had ever taught him how to fight and none of the programmed education they gave him before he became conscious covered how to disable a space-born combat mobile-suit. 

Only wearing a new jumpsuit of all black with red light-piping and a small oxygen tank, Experiment 13 felt outmatched and outgunned by the three ordinary Earth-humans, with their large mobile-suits, complete with multiple weapons fixtures, targeting software, and high durability limb attachments. 

Experiment 13 dodged one giant robotic arm, only to be smacked hard by the other. The force of the blow would have sent him rocketing towards the moons of Mars were he not caught by the second mobile-suit. It caught his smaller body in both its large mechanical hands and began to squeeze. Adding pressure slowly, trying to compress the telekinetic field that encased Experiment 13's body. Were there sound in space, the demi-kryptnoian was sure he would have heard the metal of the machine straining against his near invulnerable field. But keeping the mobile-suit from crushing him was also a strain on him and Experiment 13 didn't know how much more of this he wanted to take. He didn't like these new tests or this 'training'. He was ready to go back to his cell now and be board and alone with his thoughts.

Then he felt his oxygen tank buckle under the strain and he panicked. 

He might be invulnerable. He might be able to survive just fine in space without a protective and pressurized body-suit. But even he needed to breath! The moment the demi-kryptonian realized his one and only air-supply was compromised, he didn't think -he just acted. Lashing out of pure instinct, his TTK wild in an effort to free himself. 

The mobile-suit arms that held him ruptured. Bursting at the seems, each rivet and panel rocketing off in opposing directions.

Experiment 13 propelled himself backwards, away from his opponent. Half way between relived for himself and concerned for the pilot. He gave a glance to the other mobile-suit which was quick to react to help his comrade before his eyes flicked down to his tank's oxygen gauge. The little needle was falling fast into the red-zone of the gauge. He trusted the mobile-suit pilots to take care of each other. After all, they must do this all the time, testing weapons for Lex Corp -or whoever it was that donated the MSs to the Project. They would be fine. He on the other hand... 

The demi-kryptonian flew back to Roquette's EVA shuttle-pod and tapped on the exterior door of the air-lock, asking to be let back in. The hatch was released and he floated inside, pulling the heavy door shut behind him. Experiment 13 stood in a tiny room, barely bigger than he was, eyes fixed on a small LED screen that displayed the pressure status of the air-lock. When the pressure of the lock and the rest of the shuttle equalized, he was given the green GO light and the emergency lock on the inner door was released. It was only then that he removed his face-mask and damaged oxygen tank. 

Roquette met him at the air-lock. "Let me guess, you got scared again, then poof."

He nodded, holding up the damaged air-tank for her to see. "I, uh, yeah."

The geneticist sighed, resting her fists on her hips in resignation. "We're just gonna have to break you of that habit."

...

In all honesty, Tim was ambivalent to the idea of going back to Space Lab.

He hated space travel and all that entailed. He hated trying to walk in low gravity and absolutely loathed trying to maneuver in zero gravity. Tim was of the opinion that if he -specifically- was meant to go into space, then he would have been chosen by a magic ring that could encase his body in a magic aura that supplied him with oxygen, kept him pressurized, and insulated him from the freezing temperatures of space. Or, he would suddenly discover that he was the last survivor of an alien species that could survive in space without an vac-suit. Or was endowed by the gods with the magical ability of invulnerability. Since Tim was not a Lantern -of any color-, nor was he any variation of an alien, nor was he the chosen champion of any mythological pantheon, he concluded that space was not for him. 

But then he would think of Experiment 13 -of Kon-El. With his innocent wide blue eyes. Curious and trusting. He looked like a grown man, maybe just a few years younger than Tim himself. But he wasn't. He was a child. A baby, really. With a child's innocents and naiveté. Tim didn't know what Cadmus wanted to do with the homo-kryptonian hybrid, but he was pretty sure that whatever it was, was shady and nefarious and not at all the sort of thing an innocent boy like Kon-El should go through. 

Tim did not want to go back into space. But he did want to help the strange man-child. 

The dilemma was pushed out of his head, however, by Cassie and Bart each grabbing one of his arms and dragging him by the elbows out of his 'mini-batcave'-like bedroom at Titans Tower. 

That's it. This was the last time he was ever gonna give Cassie his security codes so she can water his bacteria cultures while he was away! Barging in on him while he's (brooding) working, and bringing Bart with her! Unacceptable!

"Dude! Welcome back!" The speedster chirped as he and Wondergirl dragged him, toes scrapping the floor, to the door.

"So... what'd you bring us as souvenirs?" Cassie asked as she attempted to put him on his feet properly so that he could walk himself out. Right. Like Tim was going to make it any easier for them to abduct him and force his involvement in whatever absurd shenanigans they had planned to commemorate his return to the atmosphere. 

"A new case-file and an anecdote about thorough investigation." He replied blandly. "Where are you taking me?"

"Welcome home brunch!" Bart said as if this should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "We haven't seen you in two weeks!"

On his other side, Cassie nodded. "So, we all got together and thought of the perfect place to take you out to eat..."

Why did her smile look so evil?

Twenty-three minuets later, Tim stood in civilian clothes, surrounded by the current roster of the Teen Titans -also, all in civilian clothes- standing inside a Red Robin, waiting to be seated. Tim Drake glared up at the restaurant logo and said, without looking at his comrades, "I. Hate. All of you."

His words were met with a chorus of giggles and snickers from behind their hands. Yes. Har har. It was so hilarious to take Red Robin out to eat at Red Robin. Let's all have a good laugh while we keep Tim away from his (brooding) work.

With a sigh, Tim flopped down on one of the slightly better than uncomfortable seats available for parties waiting to be seated. At least he'd get a meal on someone else's tab. That was nice. And they offered never-ending fries. That should keep Bart happy and out of everyone else's food. 

Cassie nudged him in the shoulder. "So... tell us about Space Lab." She prompted. "Rumor has it that's where they're hashing out plans to build a Death Star."

Tim almost snorted at that. Not the idea that they might be building a massive planet-destroying super-weapon, but just the idea of the rumor itself. It reminded him of the other technicians up on the station and all their absurd theories about the secret lab in the core. All of them were wild and ridiculous and not a one of them close to the truth. The secret lab had been growing an alien-human hybrid. Why? That was still unclear. But Tim was pretty sure that Kon-El was a far cry from anything like a 'Death Star'. 

"No, nothing like that." He told her. "Just the usual shady conspiracy stuff. Secret lab, mad scientists, naive and misunderstood creation."

"Ooh, like a Frankenstein monster?" Cassie leaned in closer. "That sounds fun! Should we mobilize the team?"

Tim paused a moment to imagine the Teen Titans descending on a confused and unsuspecting Experiment 13, his crystal-blue eyes gazing at them with curiosity and wonder. Victor would proclaim them to be the champions of justice that would take him down. Then the poor homo-kryptonian would be beaten to a pulp before Red Robin would have a chance to tell them that they got the wrong idea. Ugh... Maybe he should come back as more than just a part-timer. They needed his analytical skills and critical thinking. 

"No." Tim groaned. "I'm going back soon to take care of it."

Her mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. "Oh. Is this a bat-mission then? No outside help or interference allowed."

"Yes." Tim confirmed, practically jumping on that opportunity to cut her and the Titans out of the mission all together. It wasn't that he didn't trust his part-time team, or that he didn't appreciate their help, but as a group they lacked the subtlety and tact necessary for a mission like this. It wasn't just about stopping the mad scientist and freeing the naive and misunderstood creation. Interplanetary politics were involved. That meant that everything he did had to be calculated and carful. When all the Titans got together and went on a mission, 'carful' became a subjective concept.

"Alright then." Cassie shrugged in disappointment. Then her glance turned evil... "Then we'll change the subject. Have you found any cute someone to moon over?"

"C-Cassie!" Tim felt his face grow hot as a bright pink blush spread over his nose and cheeks.

Sadly, his exclamation drew the attention of the rest of the team. The Red Robin suddenly found himself the center of attention.

"Ooh! Are we riffing on Rob's nonexistent love-life?" Garfield sat on his other side, boxing Tim in. "I want in on some of that action!"

"We're not riffing yet, Gar." Cassie smiled sweetly. That sparkling All-American-Girl smile that hid a raging bitch underneath. "I just asked if he found anyone since his last 'relationship'."

Of course, she had to pronounce air-quotes on the word 'relationship'. After all, bat-clan didn't have 'relationships', they had complications. In the end, that's what romance was. A complication. A distraction. A liability. Tim remained tactfully silent, not giving them anything. He would have preferred the conversation return to his mission. Even though he still wouldn't comment on that any more than he already had, it would still be a far more comfortable topic to listen to them discuss. 

...


	7. Back To Space Lab

Tim would have liked to say that he couldn't believe he was on another shuttle on his way back to Space Lab. But, really it was the next logical step in the investigation. As loath though he was to admit it, he was the original investigator whom discovered the conspiracy of the secret lab in the station's core. He was the one to find Kal-El's son aged to almost full adulthood. And, he was the one whom already had established contact with the kryptonian/homo-sapien hybrid. Tim -or, more accurately, Red Robin- was the one Experiment 13 knew. Bruce couldn't send someone else. No one else would do. 

That still didn't mean Tim had to like it. 

His hands tensed when the shuttle jettisoned its secondary thrusters. His nails digging into the vinyl of the armrests. How did people like Dick find this fun? If it wasn't for the fact that Tim was on a mission and had to stay alert, he would have taken something to help him relax and/or sleep through the shuttle ride -like how some people might take a sleeping pill right before getting on an air plane. But Red Robin couldn't afford to fall asleep. Red Robin had to be ever aware of himself and his surroundings. 'Relaxing' was a luxury Tim did not get to have while on the job.

He jumped again when the shuttle docked with the station's tail. 

Cursing himself silently, Tim suppressed the urge to sigh as he unbuckled his safety harness. There was no need to hang back this time. Bruce had what data he needed on who was working the shift with Tim; pardon, who was working the shift with Alvin Drapper -he was Alvin Drapper again. Using the seat backs like the rungs of a ladder, Tim pulled himself along, keeping up with the rest of the group disembarking. He had one short burst of anxiety when he entered the transfer tube. 

Made of a composite of kryptonian crystal-tech and terrestrial space-glass, it was so clear and blemish free, Tim had to remind himself that he hadn't just glided right out of the shuttle and into the open void. If it wasn't for the nylon netting provided for people to pull themselves along in the zero-gravity, it would have been easy to believe he was free-floating in vacuum. 

Luckily, the exposed portion of the tube was only about a meter long, and so Tim was able to just close his eyes, grab a fist-full of net, and hurl himself the rest of the way into the space station proper. Not for the first time since re-boarding the shuttle he wished Bruce had selected Dick for this mission. Dick loved space travel. Dick loved maneuvering in zero-gravity. Dick wasn't afraid of being sucked out an airlock into outer space where no one can hear you scream. 

But then Tim thought about Experiment 13 -about Kon-El, his name was Kon-El. 

Isolated and alone in that little cube of a tank. No actual human contact. Sure, he could talk to people, but it wasn't the same! The closest thing he ever even got to a hand shake was that weird pressing of hands to the glass of his tank. That just wasn't right. Even Damian and Jason -as antisocial and unpleasant as they were- got hugs. Experiment 13 didn't even get his own name! 

Well, Tim was gonna fix that! 

As soon as he settled back down into his cover as a maintenance technician, and when an opportunity presented itself so as not to arouse suspicions, Tim was going to sneak into the secret lab in the core and give Kon-El his name. 

…

Experiment 13 never thought he'd be so happy to see the inside of his tank as he was when he returned from his latest training exercise. 

He was tired -he'd never been tired before. His muscles ached from unfamiliar and excessive use -he'd never had muscle pain before. His stomach groaned, begging for protein -he'd never been hungry before. And he just wanted to down a whole gallon of water -he'd never been thirsty before. 

Roquette told him that these were normal things for a person to feel after a particularly intensive workout. It was his body responding to the strain and telling him what it needed to recover and grow stronger. Rest, stretches, food, and water. It was one of the things that made him human. 

After he was back in his tank, however, he heard her speaking to one of the other scientists about how kryptonians weren't supposed to need sleep, food, or rest so long as they got plenty of yellow sunlight. Guess he wasn't kryptonian enough to be immune to those needs. He thought about Red Robin and how he managed those human needs and still managed to do his work for the mysterious Batman. Like, did he pause in the middle of his sneaking, and hiding, and pretending to be an inspector to have a protein bar and a bag of juice? Or did he schedule his spying around his human bodily needs?

Where was Red Robin anyway? Experiment 13 hadn't heard him in a while. He hoped the mysterious masked and gloved human would come back eventually. The demi-kryptonian knew he probably shouldn't trust the anonymous intruder that was crawling around the air ducts. He knew he probably should tell Roquette about him. Turn the spy in. That was what you were supposed to do with spies, right? Turn them in. But Experiment 13 didn't want to. Maybe it was his even heartbeat, or level breathing, but the demi-kryptonian liked Red Robin. He seemed nice. 

Besides, if the spy were to be believed, he was sent here to help Experiment 13. Find him. Help him. Return him to his father. 

He had a father. The demi-kryptonian had a father. 

Not just a genetic donor but a parent who wanted to raise him as their natural offspring. Experiment 13 would be lying if he said he wasn't curious. He wanted to meet this Kal-El, his father. His... dad? No, the kryptonese word for father was... He ran though his programed knowledge, information from the combined libraries of all the planets Earth had contact with, searching for the answer. 'Ukr-kah.' 

Kal-El was his ukr-kah. 

His ukr-kah sent Red Robin to find him. 

Find him. Help him. ...Help him with what? This new training they were making him do? This accelerated schedule Westfield was pushing on Roquette? Experiment 13 didn't know. He might have the combined knowledge of half a dozen worlds shoved into his subconscious, but programed knowledge aside, he knew next to nothing about the actual real world. 

…

A much as Tim wanted to pull on his Red Robin uniform and rush off to see Experiment 13 -Kon-El, his name was Kon-El- right away, that was not possible for Alvin Drapper. His cover had to be maintained, and so 'Alvin' made his way to the Mess to grab a bite to eat and sit with his fellow technicians. It had been two weeks since Tim's shift had been on Space Lab. He needed to aquatint himself with what happened while he was away. There was no better way to do this than innocent gossip.

“Got your space legs already, Drapper.” One of the other techs who came in on the same shuttle as Tim sat down next to him. “That's faster than last time. Glad to see you're getting used to it up here.”

“I told you, I've been in space before.” Tim rolled his eyes. He took a bite of the meat-like option they were serving and waited an appropriate space of time before asking, “I wonder if we missed anything interesting.”

The other tech gave a shrug. “Apparently, they've started testing some new weapon out in the debris field. You could sometimes see the flashes of explosion from the station -depending on rotations and such.” 

Now it was Tim's turn to shrug. That wasn't so interesting. “Lex Corp. and Ferris Aerospace are always testing new stuff out there. Heck, sometimes even Queen Industries and Wayne Enterprises get in on it.” There was nothing spacial about another major industrial giant trying out their new technologies in the safety of a remote orbiting junk yard. 

“Yeah.” Agreed the other tech. “But, according to Linda from Logistics, one of our own lab teams checks out an EVA pod and leaves the station right before the fireworks start, and they don't come back until its over. We're the ones testing something out there.”

That was concerning. 

“But Cadmus Labs doesn't develop weapons.” What could they possibly be testing out there? Clearly, Cadmus was keeping secrets. Kon-El's very existence was proof enough of that. Were these weapons test somehow connected to him? Or was it another unconnected project? Nothing to do with Experiment 13, but still a Cadmus conspiracy. Tim would have to find out. 

His companion gave another shrug. “No. But we do develop armor and shield platings. They could be testing those.”

Somehow, Tim's gut told him that just wasn't the case. Somehow, and he didn't know how, it would come back to Experiment 13 and Kon-El. Maybe not directly, my it would be the demi-kryptonian himself. But, somehow, every detective fiber in the young Red Robin's being told him that the new weapons testing was connected to the secret lab in the core. He just needed to find out how.


	8. Reasons Given

Tim was amazed to find his backdoor hack still intact and waiting for him when he jacked back into the Space Lab mainframe once he was in the privacy of his room. His roommate seemed to have found himself a girlfriend. Not that Tim was complaining since it got the other man out of the room and afforded him all the privacy he needed, but Tim did hope his roommate was carful with the affair. Fraternization and romantic relationships weren't explicitly forbidden by Cadmus policy, but they were definitely frowned upon. Conflict of interest and all that. 

But so long as the other man was out, it gave him the opportunity he needed to do some necessary cyber reconnaissance. The first thing he did was rule out the other tech's hypothesis that it was Cadmus testing new equipment in the debris field. As far as Tim could find, there were no project taking place on Space Lab that were developing armor plating or shielding for space crafts. Certainly Cadmus had designed these things in the past and science was all about improving and innovating things that already existed, nothing like that was happening here right now. 

Just to be thorough, though, Tim did check the station's hangar. Sure enough an EVA had been checked out frequently over the past two weeks that Tim had been away. The one signing for it was always Roquette, and the reason filled in the 'uses' field was simply 'testing'. 

So, Space Lab was testing something out there in the debris field. Since it was Roquette that checked out the EVA, clearly their 'testing' had something to do with Kon-El. The moment he realized that, Tim went straight to the Experiment 13 folder and opened all their recent files. Everything that was new. Everything that wasn't there two weeks ago when he first hacked and downloaded the computer's memory banks. 

Apparently, not long after Tim left, they started preparing the homo-kryptonian hybrid for combat. Taking him out to the debris field and teaching him to fight, disarm, dismantle, or otherwise neutralize heavy artillery. Space born fighter jets, mobile suits, space tanks. They were making Kal-El's son into a soldier. No... not a soldier. Soldiers might be drilled into obedience, but they at least were still allowed their own names. Experiment 13 hadn't even been given that. If Red Robin hadn't explicitly asked the Ambassador, he wouldn't even know 'Kon-El'. 

The question was, what did they want a weapon for?

A human-kryptonian hybrid. All the powers, strength, and god-like abilities of an alien from the Rao System, but 'born' and raised in the Sol System and -presumably- loyal to Earth and humanity. Were they anticipating some sort of extraterrestrial attack? From which planet? Why? Or... was Earth going to be the aggressor? Was whoever was funding Cadmus -or maybe just Experiment 13- planning a large scale attack on one of the planets Earth had contact with? That would explain why they had no qualms about taking Ambassador Kal-El's DNA. If they were planning to incite a large scale war anyway, what was a little stolen genetic mater in the early stages. Just fuel for the flames. 

Now, more than ever, Tim knew he had to get Kon-El out of that lab and away from the station all together. This was no longer an investigative mission. It was a rescue. 

Red Robin would have to break the homo-kryptonian out of his tank. Lead him out of the lab. Steal a vehicle that could hold two people and was capable of entering Earth's atmosphere. The moment they were planet side again, he would have to take Kon-El directly to... To the Kryptonian Embassy? But he didn't have any papers. Directly to Kal-El? That would be a bit shocking for him, the Ambassador was expecting a baby, not a fully formed person on the cusp of adulthood. To Batman then. The Dark Knight would know what to do. Bruce always knew what to do. 

But first he had to get Kon-El out of that lab and away from the station. 

One thing at a time. 

If they were moving Kon-El semi-regularly that actually helped Tim. There would be moments when he would already be out of his tank, already close to or even at the vehicle pool. Red Robin could swoop in, grab the hybrid boy, steal an EVA and blast them back to Earth. Easy peasy. 

What Tim needed to know was what kind of security they had while moving the boy. Nobody was supposed to know about Experiment 13. So the security wouldn't be to keep others away so much as keep Kon-El under control. Red Robin could expected combat training on par with his own and weapons designed to subdue -possibly even kill?- something as powerful as a kryptonian. That would be a problem. 

That. And then there was a small question of Kon-El himself. 

He seemed to trust Red Robin, at least a little bit. He heard the detective moving around in the air ducts, knew he wasn't really an inspector. But didn't turn him in to Roquette, or alert anyone to his presents at all. So, clearly, the homo-kryptonian didn't think he was suspicious enough to turn in. Or he found Red Robin interesting. Tim had to admit, he did say some pretty interesting things back during their second meeting. Kon-El never even considered the possibility of having parents, not just genetic donors. So long as Red Robin continued to say interesting things, he could be assured the hybrid wouldn't turn him in. 

But did he trust him enough to leave with him?

As unfair and wrong as it seemed to Tim, that lab and this space station had been the only 'home' Kon-El had ever known. Would he be willing to leave it just because Red Robin told him he should? He needed to talk to the boy. Gauge his willingness. See what kind of condition he was in after this new combat training they started him on. He would at least need to give the boy some warning that a rescue and escape was on the horizon. 

Tim needed to find an opportunity for Red Robin to sneak back into the core and talk to Kon-El. 

…

Westfield was in the lab again. Experiment 13 heard him talking to Roquette, and for once, they weren't fighting. 

She was showing him the Kid's latest progress. Videos of him dismantling the Lex Corp mobile suits. Charts detailing his pulse and respiratory rate both before and after the fights. How many calories he burned. How many calories he had to eat afterwards to make up for the loss. His relative skill level at the beginning compared to how much he'd improved over the course of the past two weeks. 

But as pleases as he sounded, he still wanted Roquette to push him harder. He would order more robots from Lex Corp. Their mysterious benefactor would be happy to pay for them. All they needed to do in return was provide results. Give their secret investor a return on his investments. Although, Experiment 13 was still a little unclear on what they wanted from him. It was clear by this new training that they wanted him to be combat ready. But for what reason? As far as the homo-kryptonian knew of the outside world, battles of the caliber he was training for were few and far between. 

Not for the first time, the Kid wished Red Robin would come back. The masked intruder didn't seem to have any qualms about telling him things. What was really going on. Things that were hidden from him. Secrets Westfield and Roquette were keeping from him. Red Robin would tell him. 

If only he would come back. 

Westfield left. 

Roquette pressed his tank's intercom. “Ready to go outside again, Kid?”

Experiment 13 blinked at her. Drifting over to that wall, he held down the intercom button on his own side. “So soon? I feel like I just got back from the last one.”

His muscles were still a little sore from being overworked. Not overly so. Not really enough to actually get in the way of him doing things. But certainly enough for him to be aware of strain these activities were having on his body. 

“Practice makes perfect, Kiddo.” She informed him. “Now get your suit on and lets go.”

Well, that didn't really give him much room to argue. Then again, Westfield hadn't given Roquette much room to argue. Reluctantly, Experiment 13 nodded. He wasn't happy with the latest turn his project was taking, but he didn't actually get a say in the matter. He was the research, not a researcher.

He waited until they were alone in the EVA to ask Roquette what he'd been wondering since the direction of the experiment changed. 

“What does our sponsor want?” He asked, voice quiet and serious. He was sitting next to Roquette as she piloted the EVA, but he wasn't looking at her. His attention was focussed out the main view port at the approaching debris field. “Why are they making me do this?”

Roquette was silent a moment and the homo-kryptonian thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she sighed. “There's never been anyone like you before, Kid.” She reminded him. “They want to know what you can do. They want to know your limits. They want to know what traits from each of your parent races are dominant. They want to know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, you limits. They want to know everything about you.”

“But why?” He pressed. 

She opened her mouth to answer. Thought better of whatever it was she was about to say and sighed instead. Roquette patted the artificial hybrid on the shoulder. She was quiet a moment longer. Just when Experiment 13 had figured she wasn't going to answer, she sighed again. 

“There are lots of reasons to create human-alien hybrids. Lots of aliens are more physically able to cope with the strains of space travel and exploration, humanity is a little behind the curve. Having natives born on earth able to keep up with other races will keep Earth in the interplanetary economy.” She began, almost hesitantly. “As were establish contact with more planets and peoples, mingling our cultures, individuals coming closer, there are a number of bispecies couples whom might want children but are unable to have any. Knowing that we can create homo-sapien/alien hybrids that are viable and heathy could make a lot of good people happy. Or, -inevitably- when you mingle with other cultures there's always the possibility for hostility and violence. People born on Earth, that are loyal to Earth, would have a better chance of defending the planet than any Wayne tech or Lex Corp exosuits that can be torn through like tissue by a single kryptonian.”

Experiment 13 blinked at her. He honestly hadn't expected an answer. 

Of those three answers, though, he was pretty sure only one of them was the right one -and it wasn't the middle one. 

…

Tim kept a close eye on the Experiment 13 training schedule. He waited until Kon-El had come back from one of their excursions. After taking his vitals, making sure he got something to eat and stretched after the physical exertion, the scientists left him alone to rest. As much as Tim didn't really much like the idea of cutting into the poor man's sleep, that was still the best time to reestablish contact. He would need the demi-kryptonian's cooperation in the upcoming escape. For that, Kon-El would need to know it was coming. 

Stripping out of his maintenance tech uniform, Tim pulled on his Red Robin suit. The same skintight, capeless version from last time. He slipped the maintenance technician jumpsuit on over it before leaving his room. All anyone would see would be Alvin Drapper walking the corridors with a black hoddie under his uniform. No one would suspect that quiet and mousy little Drapper, whom was still getting used to his space legs was really Red Robin. An operative of Batman Inc. whom worked directly under the Dark Knight himself. 

He took a circuitous and round about way to the core, making his way through he rings of the station slowly and without purpose so that no one would know where he was really going. When he got to the inner most ring, he took a passage to the core and found the same ventilation access he used the last time. 

It had been weeks since Tim was last crawling around the stations air ducts. He pulled up the schematics on his PDA, the faint blue glow illuminating the tight dark space. Using it to follow the same rout that took him to the vent that exited into Kon-El's tank. 

Considering how good kryptonian hearing was, Tim supposed he shouldn't have been surprised when he saw a pair of crystal blue eyes staring at him from between the ventilation grate. 

“I was hoping you'd come back.” Hissed the hybrid, as softly as he could and still allow the human vigilante to hear. 

The grate cut off so much of his face, all Tim could see was his eyes. But even so, Tim could see that he was smiling. Kon-El was genuinely happy to see him. The mysterious and suspicious masked stranger that was crawling around in the walls. Tim had been wondering how the naive and sheltered boy had been handling the new training they were giving him. If he was this happy to see a suspicious stanger that never even gave him his real name, then he really could not be enjoying it all that much. Maybe he would even be hoping for a way out. A way that the vigilante could provide. 

Tim pulled himself all the way up to the grate, the lenses of his mask peering through the slats to meet the demi-kryptonian's crystal blue stare. “I wasn't sure what kind of welcome I'd get after being gone so long.”

Kon-El was quiet a moment. As if considering his own opinions and what he should say. 

After a prolonged pause, the hybrid admitted, “I probably shouldn't trust you. The smart thing to do would be to call Roquette and turn you into security.”

That would be the smart thing. But that wasn't what Kon-El was going to do. Somehow, Tim got the vague feeling that trusting people easily -even people he shouldn't- was a trait inherited from Ambassador Kal-El. He was always so good natured, well meaning, friendly, and optimistic. (It was actually really annoying.) Clearly, at least as far as kryptonians were concerned, those were genetic traits and not leaned behaviors. 

“But they've changed things since you left.” He continued. Speaking freely and openly about things that Cadmus had taken great pains to keep confidential and secret. “They keep taking me out and making me fight giant robots. Its nice getting out of my tank, but I don't like the fights. Its cold outside” -that was an understatement, Tim thought. Only a kryptonian would describe the freezing death of space a just 'cold', “-and the robots know how to hurt me. The fights are hard, and I'm always tired after. I've never been tired before. I've never been hurt before either.”

“They have no right to force you to do any of that.” Red Robin told him. 

Tim couldn't really see it very clearly through the slats of the ventilation grate, but it seemed like Kon-El gave a shrug. “They created me.”

The sheer level of resignation and submission in that statement bothered Tim in a way he couldn't readily identify. His hands balled into fists and he found himself having to suppress a growl in his voice. “That doesn't give them any right to force you into violent situations against your consent. You might have been created through artificial means, but you are clearly a fully cognoscente person with your own thoughts and feeling independent from those that are trying to control you. They have no right to force you to do anything you don't want to do.”

Kon-El paused again. His crystal blue eyes turning inward. Tim couldn't guess what he was contemplating. Then, “I asked Roquette why we were doing it.”

He was questioning his creators. Good. That was good. It meant he didn't view them as infallible and all knowing. It meant he didn't follow them blindly trusting that they knew what was best even if he didn't like it. He really was his own person with his own thoughts and feelings. Just as Tim told him he was. “And what did she tell you?”

“She gave a bunch of reasons.” He answered. “I don't really know which to believe.”

“Well, what did she say?” Red Robin pressed. 

“She told me what you told me.” Kon-El quickly back tracked. “Well, not exactly what you told me. She said that with all the contact Earth had with other planets, there were a lot of inter-species couples that wanted kids. I'm an experiment to see if its possible and they can have healthy hybrids. That's consistent with what you said. That I have a father out there -not just a genetic donor, but a parent- and he's looking for me.”

“Yes.” Tim confirmed. “Kal-El sent me to find you. What else did Roquette tell you?”

“She also said they were trying to make an Earthling more physically adept at space travel.” He continued. “That we were falling behind in the interplanetary economy.”

Admittedly, Timothy Drake-Wayne had been away from his desk at Wayne Enterprises for so long that he didn't actually know if that were true. But it wasn't hard to believe. Zetta teleportation technology could only do so much. Sometimes good had to be shipped the long way, and those freight shuttles had to be manned somehow. Of all the known races in the universe, humans were the worst adapted to space travel. A crop of bioengineered super-humans capable of maintaining healthy physical condition and preforming their duties in space would be a huge asset to the global economy. Tim could see the motivation there. But then, why all the secrecy? Why the need to steal DNA samples and hide the research?

“Anything else?” Red Robin pressed. 

This time, when Kon-El hesitated, the pause was longer. This was the reason he hated the least. Tim didn't need to see his whole face to know that. His silence and the way those naive and innocent crystal eyes hardened was all the indication the masked detective needed. 

“What are things like on the outside?” The hybrid finally asked at length. “I mean, between Earth and the rest of the universe. What's our relationship like with other planets? Do they like us? Are we friendly?”

Now it was Tim's turn to shrug, enough though he knew Kon-El couldn't see it. Unless these vents weren't leaded and he could see it. But whatever. Tim shrugged. “We get along as well as any group of nations with political and economic interest in each other. Why?”

The demi-kryptonian didn't answer. 

“Why?” Red Robin asked again. Then paused. Thought about what he already knew. Took a guess. “Kon-El, are they trying to make a soldier out of you?”

He lowered those intense crystal eyes. “I think so.”

A literal 'super-soldier'. That was it. That was the reason for all the secrecy. 

Then the hybrid looked up, something else Red Robin said finally registering. He looked at the masked vigilante with confusion. “What did you just call me?”

Finally, Tim had something to smile about. Some good news to share with Experiment 13. “That's your name.” He told the boy. “The name your father picked out for you. I met with him after I left. Told him I found you and that you were safe, and he told me your name. Kon of the House of El.” 

Those crystal eyes looked startled for a moment. Then the demi-kryptonian smiled back. “I like it.”

Red Robin nodded, glad. He might look like a man in his late teens almost twenties, but he was really just in innocent child. “I'm going to get you out of here, Kon-El.” He promised. “I'm gonna get you to Earth and into the arms of your parents. Not just genetic donors, but people who love you and want you. Don't say anything to Roquette, but be ready. I'll come for you when I have a way out.”

Kon-El nodded. He hadn't told anyone about Red Robin sneaking around and whispering to him yet. He would keep the secret of their escape plan either -although Red Robin hadn't actually shared a plan. “I'll wait.”


End file.
